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HON. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



* Q.Q. 




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Book '_hL5t_ 



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ORATION 



DELIVERED 



BEFORE THE INHABITANTS 

OF 

THE TOWN OF NEWBURYPORT, 

AT THEIR REQUEST, 
ON 

THE SIXTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY 

OF 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 

Sulg 411), 1837. 



BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



" ?ay ye not, A Confederacy, to all them to wliom this people shall gay 
A Confederacy ; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid."' Isaiah, 8, 13. 



PR! N T E D 

BY MORSS AND BREWSTER, 

r^ewburyport Herald Office. 



.r> 






t^"^ v= 






Entered acrording to an Act of Coiigres3, in '.he year IS37, by 

MoRss &, Brkwbtek, 

In 'he Clerk"s ( iTice of the Dislricl Court of the District of M-iss.ichustits. 



fft)c Kntaftjitants of tl)c Soton of "NetDftwrnport, 



THMR CR-A-nCFUL FRIENX) AND FELLOW CITiaiW, 



JOHN Ql^NCY ADAMS. 



NEWBURYPOnx, July 10, 1857. 

HoM. JohTN Qdincy Adams — 

Dear Sir, — The undersigned, a Committee of Arrangements 
appointed by the Town of Newburyport, to conduct the late ct^l' 
ebration of the Independence of the United States, respectfully 
requestyou, in behalf of the Town, to furnish for publication a 
eopy of the able and eloquent Oration delivered by you in N.ew- 
buryport, on that day. 

We have the honor to be, 

Your obedient servants, 

SAMUEL T. DEFORD, 
, THOMAS DAVIS, 

JOHN BRADBURY, 
EBEN. D. PETTIXGELL, 
EDWARD BURRILL. 



QuiNCY, 11th July, 1837. 
Messrs. Samuel T. DkFokd, Edward Burrill, John Bradbury Thomas 
Datis, a.nd Ebenezer D. Pettingell, Commutee of Arrangements for 
the celebration of the sLny-firsl Anniversarjr of National Independence at 
Newburyport. 

Fellow Citizens — I cheerfully furnish a copy of the Oration 
prepared at the invitation of the inhabitants of Newburyport, 'for 
their celebration of the recent anniversary of our National Inde- 
pendence. To avoid trespassing too much upon their time, some 
parts of it were omitted in the delivery. I avail myself of this 
occasion to repeat to you, gentlemen, and through you to all (Jie 
inhabitants of the town, my thanks for the kind reception they 
were pleased to give me, and for the indulgent hearing of that 
portion of them which composed the auditory on that day. 
I am, with great respect, Fellow Citizens, 
Your grateful friend, 

JOHJV QUINCY ADAMSi 



ORATION. 



Why is it, Friends and Fellow Citizens, that you 
are here assembled ? Why is it, that, entering upon the 
sixty-second year of our national existence, you have 
honored with an invitation to address you from this place, 
a fellow citizen of a former age, bearing in the records of 
his memory, the warm and vivid affections which attach- 
ed him, at the distance of a full half century, to your 
town, and to your forefathers, then the cherished asso- 
ciates of his youthful days 7 Why is it that, next to the 
birth day of the Saviour of the World, your most joyous 
and most venerated festival returns on this day? — And 
why is it that, among the swarming myriads of our pop- 
ulation, thousands and tens of thousands among us, ab- 
staining, under the dictate of rehgious principle, from the 
commemoration of that birth-day of Him, who brought 
life and immortahty to light, yet unite with all their breth- 
ren of this community, year after year, in celebrating this, 
the birth-day of the nation ? 

Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birth- 
day of the nation is indissolubly hnked with the .birth-day 
of tjie Saviour 7 That it forms a leading event in the 

progress of the gospel dispensation ? Is it not that the 

1* 



6 



Declaration of Independence first organized the social 
compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission 
upon earth ? That it laid the corner stone of human 
government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and 
gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfil- 
ment of the prophecies,, announced directly from Heaven 
at the birth of the Saviour and predicted by the greatest 
of the Hebrev/ prophets six hundred years before ? 

Cast your eyes backw^ards upon the progress of time, 
sixty-one years from this day ; and in the midst of th.e 
horrors and desolations of civil war, you behold an as- 
sembly of Planters, Shopkeepers and Lawyers, the Rep- 
resentatives of the People of thirteen English Colonies 
in North America, sitting in the City of Philadelphia. 
These fifty-five men, on that day, unanimously adopt and 
publish to the world, a state paper under the simple title 
of 'A Declaration/ 

The object of this Declaration was tvvo-fold. 

First, to piTiclaim the People of the thirteen United 
Colonies, 07ie People, and in their name, and by their 
authority, to dissolve the political bands which had con- 
nected them with another People, that is, the People of 
Great Britain. 

Secondly, to assume, in the name of this one People, 
of the thirteen United Colonies, among the powers of the 
earth, the separate and equal station, to which the Laws 
of Nature, and of Nature's God, entitled them. 

With regard to the first of these purposes, the Decla- 
ration alleges a decent respect to the opinions of man- 
kind, as requiring that the one people, separating them- 
selves frcm another, should declare the causes, which 
impel them to the separation. — The specification of 
these causes, and the conclusion resulting from them, 
constitute the whole paper^ 



The Declaration was a manifesto, issued from a de- 
cent respect to the opinions of mankind, to justify the 
People of the North American Union, for their voluntary 
separation from the People of Great Britain, by alleging 
the causes which rendered this separation necessary. 

The Declaration was, thus far, merely an occasional 
state paper, issued for a temporary purpose, to justify, 
in the eyes of the world, a People, in revolt against their 
a«knowledged Sovereign, for renouncing their allegiance 
to him, and dissolving their poUtical relations with the 
nation over which he presided. 

For the second object of the Declaration, the assump- 
tion among the powers of the earth of the separate and 
equal station, to which the Laws of Nature and of Na- 
ture's God entitled them, no reason was assigned, — no 
justification was deemed necessary. 

The first and chief purpose of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was interesting to those by whom it was issu- 
ed, to the people, their constituents in whose name it was 
promulgated, and to the world of mankind to whom it 
was addressed, only during that period of time, in which 
the independence of the newly constituted people was 
contested, by the wager of battle. Six years of War, 
cruel, unrelenting, merciless War, — War, at once 
civil and foreign, were waged, testing the firmness and 
fortitude of the one People, in their inflexible adherence 
to that separation from the other, which their Represen- 
tatives in Congress had proclaimed. By the signature 
of the PreHminary Articles of Peace, on the 30th of Nov- 
ember 1782, their warfare was accompHshed, and the 
Spirit of the Lord, vvitli a voice reaching to the latest of 
future ages, might have exclaimed, like the subhme pro- 
phet of Israel, — Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, 

saith your God.* 

* Isaiah 40: I. 



8 



But, from that day forth, the separation of the one Peo- 
ple from the other was a solitary fact in their common 
history ; a mere incident in iheprogj'ess of human events^ 
not more deserving of special and annual commemoration 
by one of the separated parts, than by the other. Still 
less were the causes of the separation subjects for joyous 
retrospection by either of the parties. — The causes were 
acte of misgovernment committed by the King and Par- 
liament of Great Britain. In the exasperation of the mo- 
ment they were alleged to be acts of personal tyranny 
and oppression by the King. George the third was held 
individually responsible for them all. The real and most 
culpable oppressor, the British Parhament, was not even 
named, in the bill of pains and penalties brought against 
the monarch. — They were described only as " others" 
combined with him ; and, after a recapitulation of all the 
grievances with which the Colonies had been afilicted by 
usui-ped British Legislation, the dreary catalogue was 
closed by the sentence of unqualified condemnation, that 
a prince, whose character was thus marked by every act 
which might define a tyrant, was unworthy to be the 
ruler of a free people. 

The King, thus denounced by apordon of his subjects, 
casdng off their allegiance to his crown, has long since 
gone to his reward. His reign was long, and disastrous 
to his people, and his life presents a melancholy picture 
of the wretchedness of all human grandeur ; but we may 
now, with the candour of impartial histor]^ acknowledge 
that he was not a tyrant. His personal character was 
endowed with many estimable qualities. His intentions 
were good ; his disposition benevolent ; his integrity un- 
sullied; his domestic virtues exemplary; his religious 
impressions strong and conscientious ; his private morals 
pure ; his spirit munificent, in the promotion of the arts^ 



iiterature and sciences ; and his most fervent wishes de- 
voted to the v/elfare of his people. But he was born to 
be a hereditary king, and to exemphfy in his hfe and his- 
tory the irremediable vices of that pohtical institution, 
which substitutes birth for merit, as the only qualification 
ftDr attaining the supremacy of power. George the third 
believed that the Parliament of Great Britain had the 
right to enact laws for the government of the people 
of the British Colonies in all cases. An immense 
majority of the people of the British Islands beheved the 
same. That people were exclusively the constituents 
of the British House of Commons, where the project of 
taxing the people of the Colonies for a revenue originat- 
ed ; and where the People of the Colonies were not rep- 
resented. The purpose of the project was to alleviate 
the burden of taxation bearing upon the people of Bri- 
tain, by levying a portion of it upon the people of the 
Colonies. — At the root of all this there was a plausible 
theory of sovereignty, and unlimited power in Parlia- 
ment, conflicting with the vital principle of Enghsh Free- 
dom, that taxation and representation are inseparable, 
and that taxation without representation is a violation of 
the right of property. Here w^as a conflict between two 
first principles of government, resulting from a defect in 
the British Constitution : the principle that sovereign 
power in human Government is in its nature unlimited ; 
and the principle that property can lawfully be taxed ori- 
ly with the consent of its owner. Now these tw^o prin- 
ciples, carried out into practice, are utterly irreconcileable 
with each other. The lawyers of Great Britain held 
them both to be essential principles of the British Con- 
stitution. — In their practical application, the King and 
Parliament and people of Great Britain, appealed for the 
right to tax the Colonies to the unlimited and illimitable 



10 



sovereigntij of the Parliament. — The Colonists appeal- 
ed to the natural right o[ property, and the articles of the 
Great Charter. The collision in the application of these 
two principles was the primitive cause of the severance 
of the North American Colonies, from the British Empire. 
The grievances alleged in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence were all secondary causes, amply sufficient to 
justify before God and man the separation itself; and 
that resolution, to the support of which the fifty-five Rep- 
resentatives of the One People of the United Colonies 
pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred hon- 
our, after passing through the fiery ordeal of a six years 
war, was sanctioned by the God of Battles, and by the 
unqualified acknowledgment of the defeated adversary. 

This, my countrymen, was the first and immediate 
purpose of the Declaration of Ijidependence. It was to 
justify before the tribunal of public- opinion, throughout 
the w^orld, the solemn act of separation of the one people 
from the other. 

But this is not the reason for which you are here as- 
sembled. The question of right and wrong involved in 
the resolution of North American Independence was of 
transcendant importance to those who were actors in the 
scene. A question of life, of fortune, of fame, of eter- 
nal welfare. To ijou, it is a question of nothing more 
than historical interest. The separation itself was a pain- 
ful and distressing event ; a measure resorted to by your 
forefathers with extreme reluctance, and justified by 
them, in their own eyes, only as a dictate of necessity. — 
They had gloried in the name of Britons : It was a pass- 
port of honour throughout the civihzed world. Thej 
were now to discard it forever, with ail its tender and all 
its generous sympathies, for a name obscure and un- 
known, the honest fame of which v.as to be achieved by 



n 



the gallantry of their own exploits and the wisdom of 
their own counsels. 

But, with the separation of the one people from the 
other, was indissolubly connected another event. They 
had been British Colonies, — distinct and separate sub- 
ordinate portions of one great community. In the strug- 
gle of resistance against one common oppressor, by a 
moral centripetal impulse they had spontaneously coales- 
ced into One People. They declare themselves such in 
express terms by this paper. — The members of the 
Congress, who signed their names to the Declaration, 
style themselves the Representatives, not of the separate 
Colonies,but of the United States of America in Congress 
assembled. No one Colony is named in the Declaration, 
nor is there any thing on its face, indicating from which of 
the Colonies, any one of the signers was delegated. They 
proclaim the separation of one people from another. — 
They affirm the right of the People, to institute, alter, and 
abolish their Government : — and their final language is, 
** we do, in the name, and by the authority of the good 
People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declape 
that these United Colonies, are and of right ought to be 
Free and Independent States." The Declaration 
was not, that each of the States was separately Free and 
Independent, but that such was their united condition. 
And so essential was their union, both in principle and in 
fact, to their freedom and independence, that, had one of 
the Colonies seceded from the rest, and undertaken to 
declare herself free and independent, she could have 
maintained neither her independence nor her free- 
dom. 

And, by this paper, this One People did notify the 
world of mankind that they thereby did assume among 
the powers of the earth the separate and equal station, 



12 



to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God enti-- 
tled them. 

This was indeed a great and solemn event. The sub- 
limest of the prophets of antiquity with the voice of in- 
spiration had exclaimed, "Who hath heard such a thing? 
Who hath seen such things ? Shall the earth be made to 
bring forth in one day 1 Or shall a nation be born at 
once?"* In the two thousand five hundred years, that 
had elapsed since the day& of that prophecy, no such 
event had occurred. It had never been seen before. 
In the annals of the human race, then, for the first time, 
did one People announce themselves as a member of that 
great community of the powers of the earth, acknowl- 
edging the obligations and ctaim.ing the rights of the Laws 
of Nature and of Nature's God. The earth was made 
to bring forth in one day ! A Nation was bom at once ! 

Well, indeed, may such a day be commemorated by 
such a Nation, from year to year! But whether as a day 
of festivity and joy, or of humiliation and mourning, — 
that, fellow-citizens, — that. 

In the various turns of chance beIb^y, 
depends not upon the event itself, but upon its conse- 
quences ; and after threescore years of existence, not so 
much upon the responsibilities of those who brought the 
Nation forth, as upon the moral, pohtical and intellectual 
character of the present generation,- — of yourselves. In 
the common intercourse of social hfe, the birth-day of in- 
dividuals is often held as a yearly festive day by them- 
selves, and their immediate relatives; yet, as early as the 
age of Solomon, that wisest of men told the people of 
Jerusalem, that, as a good name was better than precious 
ointment, so the day of death was better than the day of 
one's birth.f 

*Isaiah 66: 8. | Ecclesiastes 7: 1. 



13 



Are you then assembled here, my brethren, children 
of those who declared your National Independence, in 
sorrow or in joy ? In gratitude for blessings enjoyed, or 
in affliction for blessings lost ? In exultation at the ener- 
gies of your fathers, or in shame and confusion of face at 
your own degeneracy from their virtues ? Forgive the 
apparent rudeness of these enquiries: — they are not ad- 
dressed to you under the influence of a doubt what your 
answer to them will be. You are not here to unite in 
echoes of mutual gratulation for the separation of your 
forefathers from their kindred freemen of the British Isl- 
ands. You are not here even to commemorate the mere 
accidental incident, that, in the annual revolution of the 
earth in her orbit round the sun, this w^s the birth-day 
of the Nation. You are here, to pause a moment and take 
breath, in the ceaseless and rapid race of time; — to look 
back and forward ; — to take yourpoint of departure from 
the ever memorable transactions of the day of which this 
is the anniversary, and while offering your tribute of 
thanksgiving to the Creator of all worlds, for the bounties 
of his Providence lavished upon your fathers and upon 
you, by the dispensations of that day, and while record- 
ing with filial piety upon your memories, the grateful af- 
fections of your hearts to the good name, the sufferings, 
and the services of that age, to turn your final reflections 
inward upon yourselves, and to say: — These are the 
glories of a generation p^st away, — what are the duties 
which they devolve upon us ? 

The Declaration oflndependence, in announcing to the 
world of mankind, that the People comprising the thirteen 
British Colonies on the continent of North America as.- 
sum.ed, from that day, as One People, their separate and 
equal station among the powers of the earth, explicitly 
unfolded the principles upon which their national associ- 
2 



14 



ation had, by their unanimous consent, and by the mutual 
pledges of their faith, been formed. It was an associa- 
tion of mutual covenants. Every intelligent individual 
member of that self-constituted People did, by his repre- 
sentative in Congress, the majority speaking for the 
w hole, and the husband and parent for the wife and child, 
bind his and their souls to a promise, appealing to t-he 
Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of his in- 
tentions, covenanting with all the rest that thej would 
for life and death be faithful members of that community,, 
and bear true allegiance to that Sovereign, upon the 
principles set forth in that paper. The lives, the for- 
tunes, and the honour, of every free human "being form- 
ing a part of those Colonies, were pledged, in the face of 
God and man, to the principles therein promulgated. 

My countrymen! — the exposition of these principles 
will furnish the solution to the question of the purpose 
for which you are here assembled. 

In recurring to those principles, let us remark. 
First, that the People of the thirteen Colonies aa- 
ndtinced themselves to the w^orld, and solemnly bound 
them,selves, with an appeal to God, to be One People, 
And this One People, by their Representadves, declared 
the United Colonies free and independent States. 

Secondly, they declared the People, and not the 
Slates, to be the only legitimate source of power ; and 
that to the People alone belonged the right to institute, 
to alter, to abohsh, and to re-institute government. And 
lieHce it follows, that as the People of the separate Colonies 
ar States formed only parts of the^O/te People assuming 
their station among the powers of the earth, so the Peo- 
ple of no one State could separate from the rest, but by 
a revolution, similar to that by which the whole People 
had separated themselves from the People of the British 



15 



Islands, nor without the violation of that solemn covenant, 
by which they bound themselves to support and main- 
tain the United Colonies, as free and independent States. 
An error of the most dangerous character, more than 
once threatening the dissolution bj violence of the Union 
itself, has occasionally found countenance and encourage- 
ment in several of the States, by an inference not only 
unwarranted by the language and import of the Declara- 
tion, but subversive of its fundamental principles. This 
Infcjence is, that because by this paper the United Colo- 
nies were declared free and independent States, therefore 
each of the States, separa:tely, was free, independent and 
sovereign. The pernicious and fatal malignity of this 
doctrine consists, not in the mere attribution of sove- 
reignty to the separate States ; for within their appropri- 
ate functions and boundaiies thej ai-e sovereign ; — but in 
adopting that very definition of sovereignty, which had 
bewildered the senses of the British Parhament, and 
which rent in twain the Empire ; — that principle, the re- 
sistance to which was the vital spark of the American 
revolutionary cause, namely, that sovereignty is iden- 
tical with unlimited and illimitable power. 

The origin of this error was of a very early date after 
the Declaration of Independence, and the infusion of its 
spirit into the Articles of Confederation, first formed for 
the government of the Union, w^as the seed of dissolu- 
tion sown in the soil of that compact, which palsied all its 
energies from the day of its birth, and exhibited it to the 
world only as a monument of impotence and imbecility. 
The Declaration did not proclaim the separate States 
free and independent ; much less did it announce them 
as sovereign States, or affirm that they separately pos- 
sessed the vv'ar-making or the peace-making power. 
Thefact was directly the reverse. 



16 

The Declaration was, that the United Colonies, fonii- 
ing one People, were free and independent States; that 
they were absolved from all allegiance to the British 
Crown ; that all political connection, between them and 
the State of Great Britain, was and ought to be totally 
dissolved; and that as free and independent States, they 
had full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract 
alUances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and 
things, which independent States may of right do. But 
all this was affirmed and declared not of the separate, but 
of the United, States. And so far was it from the inten- 
tion of that Congress, or of the One People whom they 
represented, to declare that all the powers of sovereign- 
ty were possessed by the separate States, that the spe- 
cification of the several powers of levying war, conclud- 
ing peace, contracting alliances, and establishing com- 
merce, w^as obviously introduced as the indication of 
powers exclusivehj possessed by the one People of the 
United States, and not appertaining to the People of 
each of the separate States. This distinction was indeed 
indispensable to the necessities of their condition. The 
Declaration was issued in the midst of a war, commenced 
by insurrection against their common sovereign, and un- 
til then, raging as a civil war. Not the insurrection of 
one of the Colonies ; not the insurrection of the organiz- 
ed government of any one of the Colonies; but the in- 
surrection of the People of the whole thirteen. The in- 
surrection was one. The civil war v/as one. In consti- 
tuting themselves one People, it could not possibly be 
their intention to leave the power of concluding peace to 
each of the States of which the Union was composed. 
The war was waged against all The war itself had 
united the inhabitants of the thirteen Colonies into one 
People. The lyre of Orpheus was the standard of the 



17 

Union. By the representatives of that one People, and 
by them alone, could the peace be concluded. Had the 
people of any one of the States pretended to the right of 
concluding a separate peace, the very fact would have 
operated as a dismemberment of the Union, and could 
have been carried into effect only by the return of that 
portion of the People to the condition of British subjects. 

Thirdly, the Declaration of Independence announced 
the One People, assuming their station among the powers 
of the earth, as a civilized, rehgious, and Christian People, 
— acknowledajing themselves bound by the obligations, 
and claiming the rights, to which they were entitled by 
the laws of Nature and of Nature's God- 

They had formed a subordinate portion of an Europe- 
an Christian nation, in the condition of Colonies. The 
laws of social intercourse between sovereign commun- 
ities consdtute the laws of nations, all derived fi-om 
three sources : — the laws of nature, or in other words 
the dictates of justice ; usages, sanctioned by custom ; 
and treaties, or national covenants. Superadded to 
these, the Christian nations, betw^een themselves, admit, 
with various latitudes of interpretation, and litde consist- 
ency of practice, the laws of humanity and mutual be- 
nevolence taught in the gospel of Christ. The Europe- 
an Colonies in America had all been settled by Christian 
nations ; and the first of them, setded before the reforma- 
tion of Luther, had sought their justification for taking 
possession of lands inhabited by men of another race, in 
a grant of authority from the successor of Saint Peter at 
Rome, for converting the natives of the countr}?^ to the 
Christian code of religion and morals* After the rcforma- 
tioD, the kings of England, substituting themselves in 
the place of the Roman Pontiff, a. heads of the Church, 
granted charters for the same benevolent purposes ; and 
as these colonial establishments successively arose, 
worldly purposes, the spirit of adventure, and religious 



18 



persecution took their place, together with the conver- 
sion of the heathen, among the motives for the European 
establishments in this Western Hemisphere. Hence 
had arisen among the colonizing nations, a customary 
law, under which the commerce of all colonial settle- 
ments was confined exclusively to the metropolis or 
mother countr}^ The Declaration of Independence cast 
off all the shackles of this dependency. The United 
States of America were no longer Colonies. They were 
an independent Nation of Christians, recognizing the 
general principles of the European law of nations. 

But to justify their separation from the parent State, 
it became necessary for them to set forth the wrongs 
which they had endured. Their colonial condition had 
been instituted by cJmrtcrs from British kings. These 
they considered as compacts between the King as their 
sovereign and them as his subjects. In all these char- 
ters, there were stipulations for securing to the colonists 
the enjoyment of the rights of natural born Enghshmen. 
The attemipt to tax them by Act of Parhament was a 
violation of their charters. And as the Parliament, to 
sustain their right of taxing the Colonies had appealed 
to the prerogative of sovereign power, the colonists, to 
refute that claim, after appealing in vain to^their charters, 
and to the Great Charter of England, were obliged to re- 
sort to the natural rights of mankind ; — to the laws of 
Nature and of Nature's God. 

And now, my friends and fellow citizens, have we not 
reached the cause of your assemblage here ? Have we 
not ascended to the source of that deep, intense, and 
never-fading interest, which, to your fathers, from the 
day of the issuing of this Declaration, — to 3 ou, on this 
sixty-first anniversary after that event, — and to your 
children and theirs of the fiftieth generation, — has made 
and will coTitinue to make it the first and happiest of 
festive days '^ 



19 

In setting forth the justifying causes of their separa- 
tion from Great Britain, your fathers opened the foun- 
tains of the great deep. For the first time since the 
creation of the world, the act, which constituted a great 
people, laid the foundation of their government upon 
the unalterable and eternal principles of human rights. 

They were comprized in a few short sentences, and 
were delivered with the unqualified confidence of self- 
evident truths. 

" We hold," says the Declaration, " these truths to be 
self-evident: — that all men are created equal; that they 
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
rights ; that among these are life, hberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness ; that to secure these rights, governments 
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers 
fi'om die consent of the governed ; that whenever any 
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is tJie right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and 
to insdtute a new government, laying its foundadons on 
such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, 
as to tliem shall seem most likely to eff'ect their safety 
and happiness." 

It is afterwards stated to be the duly of the People, 
when their governments become incorrigibly oppressive, 
to throw them off, and to provide new guards for their v 
future security ; and it is alleged that such was the con- 
dition of the British Colonies at that time, and that they 
were constrained by necessity to alter their systems of 
government. 

The origin of lawful government among men had form- 
ed a subject of profound investigation and of ardent dis- 
cussion among the philosophers of ancient Greece. The 
theocratic government of the Hebrews had been found- 
ed upon a covenant between God and man ; a lav/, 
given by the Creator of the world, and solemnly accept- 
ed by the people of Israel. It derived all its pov/ers, 



20 

therefore, from the consent of the governed, and gave 
the sanction of Heaven itself to the principle, that the 
consent of the governed is the only legitimate source of 
authority to man over man. 

But the history of mankind had never before furnished 
an example of a government directly and expressly in- 
stituted upon this principle. The associations of men, 
beaiing the denomination of the People, had been vari- 
ously formed, and the term itself was of very indefinite 
signification. In the most ordinary acceptation of the 
word, a people, was understood to mean a multitude of 
human beings united under one supreme government, 
and one and the same civil polity. But the same term 
was equally apphed to subordinate divisions of the same 
nation ; and the inhabitants of every province, county, 
city, town, or village, bore the name, as habitually as the 
whole population of a kingdom or an empire. In the 
theories of government, it was never imagined that the 
people of every hamlet or subordinate district of territo- 
ry should possess the power of constituting themselves 
an independent State ; yet are they justly entitled to the 
appe^llation of people, and to exemption from all authori- 
ty derived from any other source than their own con- 
sent, express or imphed. 

The Declaration of Independence constituted all the 
inhabitants of European descent in the thirteen English 
Colonies of North America, one People, with all the at- 
tributes of rightful sovereign power. They had, until 
then, been ruled by thirteen different systems of govern- 
ment ; none of them sovereign ; but all subordinate to 
one sovereign, separated from them by the Atlantic 
Ocean. The Declaration of Independence altered these 
systems of government, and transformed these depend- 
ant Colonies into united, free, and independent States. 

The distribution of the sovereign powers of govern- 
ment, between the body representing the whole People, 



21 

and the municipal authorities substituted for the colonial 
governments, was left for after consideration. The Peo- 
ple oi^ each Colony, absolved by the People of the vvhote 
Union from their allegiance to the British crown, became 
themselves, upon the principles of the Declaration, tlie 
sovereigns to institute and organize new systems of gov- 
ernment, to take the place of those which had been abol- 
ished by the will of the whole People, as proclaimed in 
the Declaration of Independence. 

It will be remembered, that, until that time, the whole 
movement of resistance against the usurpations of the 
British government had been revolutionary, and there- 
fore iiTegular. The colonial governments were still un- 
der the organization of their charters, except that of 
Massachusetts-Bay, which had been fonnally vacated, 
and tlie royal government was administered by a military 
commander and regiments of soldiers. The country 
was in a state of civil war. The people were in revolt, 
claiming only the restoration of their violated rights as 
subjects of the British king. The members of the Con- 
gress had been elected by the Legislative assembhes of 
the Colonies, or by self-constituted popular conventions 
oi' assemblies, in opposidon to the Governors. Their 
original mission had been to petition, to remonstrate ; to 
disclaim all intention or purpose of independence; to seek, 
with earnest entreaty, the redress of grievances, and rec- 
ondliadon with the parent State. They had received 
no authority, at their first appointment, to declare inde- 
pendence, or to dissolve the political connection betvv'een 
the Colonies -and Great Britain. But they had petition- 
ed once and again, and their petitions had been slighted. 
They had remonstrated, and their remonstrances had 
been contemned. They had disclaimed all intention of 
independence, and their disclaimer had been despised. 



22 



They had finally recommended to the People to look for 
their redemption to themselves, and they had been an- 
swered by voluntary and spontaneous calls for indepen- 
dence. They declared it, therefore, in the name and by 
the authority of the People, and their declaration was 
confirmed from New-Hampshire to Georgia with one 
universal shout of approbation. 

And never, from that to the present day, has there 
been one moment of regret, on the part of the People, 
whom they thus declared independent, at this mighty 
change of their condition, nor one moment of distrust, of 
the justice of that declaration. In the mysterious ways 
of Providence, manifested by the course of human events, 
the feeble light of reason is often at a loss to discover 
the coincidence between the law^s of eternal justice, and 
the decrees of fortune or of fate in the affairs of men. 
In the corrupted currents of this world, not only is the 
race not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,* 
but the heart is often wrung with anguish at the sight of 
the just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and of 
the wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wicked- 
ness. f Far different and happier is the retrospect upon 
that great and memorable transaction. Every individual, 
whose name was affixed to that paper, has finished his 
cai'eer upon earth ; and who, at this day would not deem 
it a blessing to have had his name recorded on that fist 7 
The act of abolishing the government under which they 
had hved, — of renouncing and abjuring the allegiance by 
whicli they had been bound, — of dethroning their sove- 
reign, and of discarding their country herself, — purified 
and elevated py the principles which they proclaim- 
ed, and by the motives which they promulgated as their 
stimulants to action, — stands recorded in the annals of the 
* JBcclesiastes 9:11. j Eccl. 7 : Id. 



23 



human race, as one among the brightest achievements 
of human virtue : — applauded on earth, ratified and con- 
firmed by the fiat of Heaven. 

The principles, thus triumphantly proclaimed and es- 
tablished, were the natural and unalienable rights of man, 
and the supreme authority of the People, as the only le- 
gitimate source of power in the institution of civil gov- 
ernment. But let us not mistake the extent, nor tura 
our eyes from the hmitations necessary for the applica- 
tion, of the principles themselves. Who were the Peo- 
ple, thus invested by the laws of Nature and of Nature's 
God, wdth sovereign powers? And what were the sove- 
reign powers thus vested in the People 7 

First, the w^hole free People of the thirteen United 
British Colonies in North America. The Declaration 
was their act ; prepared by their Representatives ; in 
their name, and by their authority. An act of the m:ost 
transcendant sovereignty ; abolishing the governments of 
thirteen Colonies ; absolving their inhabitants from the 
bands of their allegiance, and declaring the whole Peo- 
ple of the British Islands, theretofore their fellow subjects 
and countrymen, aliens and foreigners. 

Secondly, the free People of each of the thirteen Col- 
onies, thus transformed into united, free, and independ- 
ent States. Each of these formed a constituent portion 
of the whole People ; and it is obvious that the power 
acknowledged to be in them could neither be co-exten- 
sive, nor inconsistent with, that rightfully exercised by 
the whole People. 

In absolving the Peoplfe of the thirteen United Colo- 
nies from tire bands of their allegiance to the British 
crown, the Congress, represen-ting the whole People, 
neitfeer did nor could alisolve them, or any one individ- 
ual among them, from the obligation of any other con- 



24 

tract by which he had been previously bound. They 
neither did nor could, for example, release any portion 
of tiie People from the duties of private and domestic 
life. They could not dissolve the relations of husband 
and wife ; of parent and child ; of guardian and ward ; 
d' master and servant ; of partners in trade ; of debtor and 
a-editor ; — nor by the investment of each of the Colonies 
with sovereign power could they bestow upon them the 
power of dissolving any of those relations, or of absolv- 
ing any one of the individual citizens of the Colony from 
the fulfilment of all the obligations resulting from them. 

The sovereign authority, conferred upon the People of 
the Colonies by the Declaration of Independence, could 
not dispense them, nor any individual citizen of them, 
from the fulfilment of all their moral obligations ; for to 
the^e they w^ere bound by the laws of Nature's God ; 
nor is there any power upon earth capable of grantirut 
absolution h'om them. The People, who assumed their 
equal and separate station among the powers of tli<e 
e«arth by the law^s of Nature's God, by that very act aa- 
knowledged themselves bound to the observance o-f 
tl^ose laws, and could neither exercise nor confer any 
power inconsistent Adth them. 

The sovereign authority, conferred by the Declaration 
of Independence upon the people of each of the Colo- 
nies, could n'ot extend to the exercise of any powder in- 
consistent with that Declaration itself. It could not, for 
example, authorize any one of the United Stales to con- 
clude a separate peace with Great Britain ; to connect 
itself as a Colony with France^ or any other Euriopean 
power ; to contract a separate alliance with any othq^ 
State of the Union ; or separately to establish com- 
merce. These are all acts of sovereignty, which the 
Declaration of Independence affirmed the United States 



25 

were competent to perform, but which for that very rea- 
son were necessarily excluded from the powers of sove- 
reignty conferred upon each of the separate States. The 
Declaration itself was at once a social compact of the 
whole People of the Union, embracing thirteen distinct 
communities united in one, and a manifesto proclaiming 
themselves to the world of mankind, as one Nation, pos- 
sessed of all the attributes of sovereign power. But this 
united sovereignty could not possibly consist with the 
absolute sovereignty of each of the separate States. 

" That were to make 
Strange contradiction, which to God himself 
Impossible is held, as argument 
Of weakness, not of power."* 

The position, thus assumed by this one People con- 
sisting of thirteen free and independent States, was new 
in the history of the world. It was complicated and 
compounded of elements never before believed suscep- 
tible of being blended together. The error of the Brit- 
ish Parliament, the proximate cause of the Revolution, 
that sovereignty was in its nature unlimited and inimita- 
ble, taught as a fundamental doctrine hy all the English 
lawyers, was too deeply imprinted upon the minds of the 
lawj^ers of our own country to be eradicated, even by the 
civil war, which it had produced. The most celebrated 
British moralist of the age, Dr. Samuel Johnson, in a con- 
troversial tract on the dispute between Britain and her 
Colonies, had expressly laid down aS the basis of his ai*- 
gument, that — "All government is essentially absolute. 
That in sovereignty there are no gradations. That there 
may be hmited royalty ; there may be Hmited consul- 
ship ; but there can be no limited government. There 
must in every society be some power or other from 
w'hich there is no appeal ; which admits no restrictions ; 
which pervades the whole mass of the community ; rQg- 

* Milton. Paradise Lost, — B. 10—1. 798. 

3 



26 



ulates and adjusts all subordination ; enacts laws or re- 
peals them ; erects or annuls judicatures ; extends or 
contracts privileges; exempts itself from question or 
control ; and bounded only by physical necessity."* 

The Declaration of Independence was founded upon 
the direct reverse of all these propositions. It did not 
recognize, but implicitly denied, the unlimited nature of 
sovereigntij. By the affirmation that the principal natural 
rights of mankind are unalienable, it placed them beyond 
the reach of organized human power; and by affirming 
that governments are instituted to secure them, and may 
and ought to be abohshed if they become destructive of 
those ends, they made all government subordinate to thi? 
moral supremacy of the People. 

The Declaration itself did not even announce the 
States as sovereign, but as united, free and independent, 
and having power to do all acts and things which inde- 
pendent States may of right do. It acknowledged, 
therefore, a rule o'i right, paramount to the power of in- 
dependent States itself, and virtually disclaimed all pow- 
er to do icrong. This was a novelty in the moral phi- 
losophy of nations, and it is the essential point of differ- 
ence between the system of government announced in 
the Declaration of Independence, and those systems 
w^hich had until then prevailed among men. A moral 
Ruler of the universe, the Governor and Controller of all 
human power, is the only unhmited sovereign acknow- 
ledged by the Declaration of Independence; and it claims 
for the United States of America, when assuming their 
equal station among the nations of the earth, only the 
power to do all that may be done of right. 

Threescore and one years have possed away, since 
this Declaration was issued, and we may now judge of 
the tree by its fruit. It was a bold and hazardous step, 
when considered merely as the act of separation of the 

*■ Johnson's Taxation no Tyranny. 



S7 

Golonies from Great Britain. Had the cause in which it 
was issued failed, it would have subjected every individ- 
ual who signed it to the pains and penalties of treason ; 
to a cruel and ignominious death. But, inflexible as were 
the spirits, and intrepid as were the hearts of the patri- 
ots, who by this act set at defiance the colossal power of 
the British Empire, bolder and more intrepid still were 
the souls, which, at that crisis in human affairs, dared t»3 
proclaim the new and fundamental principles upon which 
their incipient Republic was to be founded. It was an 
experiment upon the heart of man. Ail the legislators 
of the human race, until that day, had laid the founda- 
tions of all government among men in power ; and hence 
it was, that, in the maxims of theory, as woll as in the 
practice of nations, sovereignty was held to be unUmiled 
and ilHmitable. The Declaration of Independence pro- 
claimed another law. A law of resistance against sove- 
reign power, wlien wielded for oppression. A law as- 
cending the tribunal of the univerp d lawgiver and judge. 
A lav.;^ oi right, binding upon nations as well as individu- 
als, upon sovereigns as welt as upon subjects. By that 
law the colonists had resisted their sovereign. By that 
law, when that resistance had failed to reclaim him to 
the rule of right, they renounced him., abjured his alleg- 
iance, and assumed the exercise of rightful sovereignty 
themselves. But, in assuming the attributes of sovereign 
power, they appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world 
for the rectitude of their intentions, and neither claimed 
nor cowferred authority to do any thing but of right. 

Of the war with Great Britain, by which the indepen- 
dence thus declared was maintained, and of the peace by 
which it was acknowledged, it is unnecessary to say more. 
The war was deeply distressing and calamitous, and its 
most instructive lesson v. as to teach the new confeder- 
ate Republic the inestimable value of the blessings of 
peace. When the peace came, all controversy with 



28 

Great Britain, with regard to the principles upon which 
the Declaration of Independence had been issued, was 
terminated, and ceased forever. The main purpose for 
which it had been issued was accomplished. No idle 
exultation of victory wa& worthy of the holy cause in 
which it had been achieved. No ungenerous triumph 
over the defeat of a generous adversary was consistent 
\vith the purity of the principles upon which the strife 
had been maintained.. Had that contest furnished the 
only motives for the celebration of the day, its anniver- 
sary should have ceased to be commemorated, and the 
Fourth of July would thenceforward have passed unno- 
ticed from year to year, scarcely numbered among the 
dies fasti of the Nation. 

But the Declaration of Independence had abolished 
the government of the thirteen British Colonies in North 
America. A new government was to be instituted in its 
stead. A task more trying, had. devolved upon the Feo- 
ple of the Union than the defence of their country against 
foreign armies ; a duty more arduous than (hat of fighting 
the battles of the Revolution* 

The elements and the prmciples for the formation of 
the new government were all contained' in the Declara- 
tion of Independence ; but the adjustment of them to the 
conditioft of l^e pardes to the compact Was a work of 
time, of reflection, of experience, of calm dehberation^ &i 
moral and intellectual exertion ; for those elements were 
far from being homogeneous, and there were circum- 
stances in the condition of the parties, far from contorm- 
able to the principles proclaimed. The Declaration had 
laid the foundation of all civii gove^-nment, in the unalien- 
able natural rights of individual man, of which it had spe- 
cifically named three : — life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness, — declaring them to be among others not en^ 
umerated. The revolution had been exclusively popular 
and democratic, and the Declaration had announced th{\t. 



29 

the only object of the institution of governments among 
men was to secure their unalienable rights, and that they 
derived their ^ms^ pow'^ers from the consent of the govern- 
ed. The Declaration proclaimed the parties to the com- 
pact as one People, composed of united Colonies, thence- 
forward free and independent States, constrained by ne- 
cessity to alter their former systems of government. It 
would seem necessarily to follow from these elements and 
these principles, that the government for the whole Pe3- 
ple should have been instituted by the whole People, 
and the government of each of the independent States 
by the People of that State. But obvious as that co»- 
clusion is, it is nevertheless equally true, that it has not 
been wholly aceompUshed even to this day. 

On the tenth of May preceding the day of the Declar- 
ation, the Congress had adopted a resolution, which may 
be considered as the herald to that Independence. After 
its adoption it was considered of such transcendent impor- 
tance, that a special committee of three members was 
appointed to prepare a preamble to it. On the fifteenth 
of May this preamble was reported, adopted, and order- 
ed to be published, with the resoi ution, which had been 
adopted on the tenth. The preamble and resolution 
are in the following words: 

" Whereas his Britannic Majesty, in conjunction with 
the Lords and Commons of Great Britain, lias, by a late 
Act of Parhament, excluded the inhabitants of these 
United Colonies from the protection of his crown ; and 
whereas no answer whatever to the humble petitions ot 
the Colonies, for redress of grievances and reconciliation 
with Great Britain, has been or is likely to be given, but 
the whole course of that kingdom, aided by foreign mer- 
cenaries, is to be exerted for the destruction of the good 
people of these Colonies ; and whereas it appears abso- 
lutely irreconcileable to reason and good conscience for 
the people of these Colonies now to take the oaths and 
3* 



30 

affirmations nacessiry for the support of any govern- 
ment under the cipwn of Great Britain, and it is neces- 
sary that the exercise of every kind of authority under 
the said crown should be totally suppressed, and all the 
powers of government exerted under the authority of the 
people of the Colonies, for the preservation of internal 
peace, virtue, and good order, as well as for the defence 
of their lives, liberties, and properties, against the hos- 
tile invasions and cruel depredations of their euemies : — 
Therefore, Resolved, 

"That it b.e recommended to the respective assem- 
bhes and coBventions of the United Colonies, where no 
government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs 
hath been hitherto established, to adopt such govern- 
ment as shall, in the opinion of the Representatives of 
the People, best conduce to the happiness and safety of 
their constituents in particular, and America in general." 

The People of some of the Colonies had not waited 
for this recommendation, to assume all tlie powers of 
their internal government into their own hands. In 
some of them, the governments constituted by the royal 
charters were continued without alteration ; or with the 
mere divestment of the portion of the public authority, 
exercised by the crown. In others, constitutions had 
been adopted, or were in preparation by representative 
popular conventions. Massachusetts was represented 
by a Provincial Congress, elected by the people as the 
General Court had been under the royal charter, and 
from that assembly the general Congress had been urg- 
ently invoked, for their advice in the formation of a gov- 
ernment adapted to the emergency, and unshackled by 
transatlantic dependence. 

The institution of civil government by the authority of 
the People, in each of the separate Colonies, was thus 
univevsally recognized as resulting from the dissoludoii 
of their allegiance to the British crown. But, that the 



31 



union oould be cemented and the national powers of 
government exercised of right, only by a constitution of 
government emanating from the whole People, was not 
yet discovered. The powers of the Congress then ex- 
isting, were revolutionary and undefined ; limited by no 
constitution; responsible to no common superior; dic- 
tated by the necessities of a death-struggle for freedom ; 
and embracing all discretionary means to organize and 
maintain the resistance of the people of all the Colonies 
against the oppression of the British Parliament. In de- 
vising measures for giving permanence, and, as far as hu- 
man wisdom could provide, perpetuity, to the Union 
which had been formed by the common sufferings and 
dangers of the whole People, they universally concluded 
that a confederation would suffice ; and that a confeder- 
ation could be instituted by the authority of the States, 
without the intervention of the People. 

On the twentyfirst of July, 1775,. nearly a year before 
the Declaration of Independence, a sketch of articles of 
confederation, and contingently perpetual union, had 
been presented to Congress by Doctor Franklin, for a 
confederacy^ to be styled the United Colonies of North 
America. It was proposed that this confederacy should 
continue until a reconciliation with Great Britain should 
be effected, and only on failure of such reconciliation, to 
be perpetual. This project, contemplated only a part- 
ner,ship of Colonies to accomphsh their common re-sub- 
jugation to the British crown. It made no provision for 
a community of independent States, and was encumber- 
ed with no burden of sovereignty. No further action 
upon the subject was had by Congress, till the eleventh 
of June, 1776. 

Four days before this, that is, on the seventh of June, 
certain resolutions respecting independency had been 



32 



moved and seconded. They were on the next day re- 
ferred to a committee of the whole, and on Monday, the 
tenth of June, they were agreed to in the committee of 
the whole and reported to the Congress. 

The first of these resolutions was that of independence. 

The second was, that a committee be appointed ta 
prepare and digest the form of a confederation, to be en- 
te^'ed into between these Colonies. 

The third, that a committee be appointed to prepare 
a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers. 

The consideration of the first resolution, that of inde- 
pendence, was postponed to Monday the fii'st day of 
July ; and, in the meanwhile, that no time should be lost, 
in case the Congress should agree thereto, it was re- 
solved, that a committee be appointed to prepare a Dec- 
laration, to the effect of the resolution. 

On the next day, the eleventh of June, the committee 
to prepare the Declaration of Independence was ap- 
pointed ; and immediately afterwards, the appointment 
of two other committees was resolved; one to prepare 
and digest the plan of a confederation, and the other to 
prepare the plan of treaties to be proposed to foreigm 
powers. 

These committees were appointed on the twelfth of 
June. The one, to prepare and digest the plan for a 
confederation, consisted of one member from each Col- 
ony. They reported on the twelfth day of July, eight 
days after the Declaration of Independence, a draught of 
ai'ticles of confederation and perpetual union between 
the Colonies, naming them all fiom New-Hampshire to 
Georgia. 

The most remarkable characteristic of this paper i« 
the indiscriminate use of the terms Colonics and States, 
pervading the whole document, both the words denoting 



33 

the parties to the confederacy. The title declared a 
confederacy between Colonies, but the first article of the 
draught was — "The name of this confederacy shall be the 
United States of America." In a passage of the 18th ar* 
tide, it was said, — " The United States assembled, shall 
never engage the United Colonies in a war, unless the 
delegates of nine Colonies freely assent to the same." 
The solution to this singularity was that the draught was 
in preparation before, and reported after, the Declaration 
of Independence. The principle upon which it was 
drawn up was, that the separate members of the confed- 
eracy should still continue Colonies, and only in their 
united capacity constitute States. The idea of separate 
State sovereignty had evidently no part in the composi- 
tion of this paper. It was not countenanced in the Dec- 
laradon of Independence ; but appears to have been gen-' 
crated in the debates upon this draught of the articles of 
confederation, between the twelfth of July, and the ensu- 
ing twentieth of August, when it was reported by the 
committee of the whole in a new draught, from which 
the term Colony, as applied to the contracting parties, 
was carefully and universally excluded. The revised 
draught, as reported by the committee of the whole, ex- 
liibits, in the general tenour of its articles, less of the 
spirit of union, and more of the separate and sectional 
feeling, than the draught prepared by the first committee; 
and far more than the Declaration of Independence. 

This was, indeed, what must naturally have been ex- 
pected, in the progress of a debate, involving all the jar- 
ring interests and all the latent prejudices of the several 
contracting parties ; each member now considering him- 
self as the representative of a separate and corporate 
interest, and no longer acting and speaking, as in the 
Peclaration of Independence, in the name and by the 



34 



authority of the whole People of the Union. Yet in the 
revised draught itself, reported by the committee of the 
whole, and therefore exhibiting the deliberate mind of 
the majority of Congress at that time, there was no as- 
sertion 0^ sovereign power as of right intended to be re- 
served to the separate States. But, in the original draught, 
reported by the select committee on the twelfth of July, 
the Ih'st words of the second article were, — " The said 
Colonies unite themselves so as never to be divided by 
any act whatever.''^ Precious words ! — words, pronounc- 
ed by the infant Nation, at the instant of her rising from 
the baptismal font ! — words bursting from the hearts and 
uttered by lips yet glowing with the touch from the coal 
of the Doclaration ! — why were ye stricken out at the re- 
visal of the draught, as reported by the committee of the 
whole '? — There was in the closing article, both of the 
original and of the revised draught, a provision in these 
words, following a stiDulation that the articles of confed- 

y Ox 

3ration, when ratified, should be observed by the parties 
— "And the union is to be perpetual." — Words, which, 
considered asamere repetition of the pledge, the sacred 
pledge given in those first words of the contracting par- 
ties in the original draught, — " The said Colonies unite 
themselves so as never lo be divided by any act what- 
ever," — discover only the intenseness of the spirit of 
union, with which the draught had been prepared ; but 
which, taken by themselves, and stripped of that pre- 
cious pledge, given by the personification of the parties 
announcing their perpetual union to the world, — how 
cold and hfeless d®they sound ! — "^ru/ the union is to 
be perpetual r — as if it was an after-thought, to guard 
against the conclusion that an union so loosely compact- 
ed, was not even intended to be permanent. 



35 

The original draught, prepared by the committee eo- 
temporaneously with the preparation, by the other com- 
mittee, of the Declaration of Independence, was in twen- 
ty articles. In the revised draught reported by the com- 
mittee of the whole on the twentieth of August, the ar- 
ticles were reduced to sixteen. The four articles omit- 
ted, were the very grappling hooks of the Union. They . 
secured to the citizens of each State, the rights of naiive 
citizens in all the rest; and they conferred upon Con- 
gress the power of ascertaining the boundaries of the 
several States, and of disposing of the pubhc lands which 
should prove to be beyond them. All these were strick^ 
en out of the revised draught. You have seen the mu- 
tilation of the second article, which constituted the Union. 
The third article contained the reserved rights of the 
several parties to the compact, expressed in the original 
draught thus : 

"Each Colony shall retain and enjoy as much of its 
present laws, rights, and customs, as it may think fit ; 
and reserves to itself the sole and exclusive regulation 
and government of its internal police, in all matters that 
s^all not interfere with the articles of this confederation." 

In the revised draught, the first clause was omitted, 
aiid the article read thus : 

"Each State reserves to itself the sole and exclusive 
regulation and government of its internal police, in all 
matters that shall not interfere with the articles of this 
confederation." 

From the twentieth of August, 1776, to the eighth of 
April, 1 777, although the Congress were in permanent 
session, v;ithout recess but from day to day, no further 
action upon the revised draught reported by the com- 
mittee of the whole was had. The interval was the 
most glo@my and disastrous period of the war. The 



36 



debates, on the draught of articles reported by the first 
committee, had evolved and disclosed all the sources of 
disunion existing between the several sections of the 
country, aggravated by the personal rivalries, which, be- 
tween the leading members of a dehberative assembly, 
animated by the enthusiastic spirit of liberty, could nol 
tail to arise. When, instead of a constitution of govern- 
ment for a whole People, a confederation of independent 
States was assumed, as the fundamental principle of the 
permanent union to be organized for the American na- 
tion, the centripetal and centrifugal pohtical powers were 
at once brought into violent conflict with each other. 
The corporation and the popular spirits assumed oppos- 
ite and adversary aspects. The federal and anti-federal 
parties originated. State pride. State prejudice. State 
jealousy, were soon embodied under the banners of 
State sovereignty, and while the cause of freedom and 
independence itself was drooping under the calamities of 
war and pestilence, with a pennyless treasury, and an 
all but disbanded army, the Congress of the people had 
no heart to proceed in the discussion of a confederacy, 
overrun by a victorious enemy, and on the point, to all 
external appearance, of being crushed by the wheels of 
a conqueror's triumphal car. 

Oft the eighth of April, 1777, the draught reported by 
the committee of the whole, on the preceding twentieth 
of August, was nevertheless taken up ; and it was re- 
solved that two days in each week should be employed 
on that subject, until it should be wholly discussed in 
Congress. The exigencies of the war, however, did not 
admit the regular execution of this order. The articles 
were debated only upon six days in the months of April, 
May, and June, on the twentysixth of which month tjie 
farther consideration of them was indefinitely postponed. 



B7 

On the eighteenth of September of that year, the.»Con- 
gress were obliged to withdraw from the city of Phila- 
delphia, possession of which was immediately afterwards 
taken by the British army under the command of Sir 
WilUam Howe. Congress met again on the thirtieth of 
September, at Yorktown, in the state of Pennsylvania, 
and there, on the second of October, resumed the con- 
sideration of the articles of confederation. From that 
time to the fifteenth of November, the debates were un- 
remitting. The yeas and nays, of which there had un- 
til then been no example, were now taken upon every 
prominent question submitted for consideration, and the 
struggle between the party of the States and the party 
of the People became, from day to day, more vehement 
and pertinacious. The first question upon which the 
yeas and nays were called was, that the representation hi 
the Congress of the confederation should be proportional 
to a ratio of population, which was presented in two sev- 
eral modifications, and rejected in both. The next pro- 
posal was, that it should be proportional to the tax or 
contribution paid by the several States to the public 
treasury. This was also rejected ; and it was finally 
settled as had been reported by the committee, that each 
State should have 07ie vote. Then came the question of 
the proportionable contributions of the several States. 
This involved the primary principle of the Revolution it- 
self, w^hich had been the indissoluble connection between 
taxation and representation. It follows as a necessary 
consequence from this, that all just taxation must be pro- 
portioned to representation ; and here was the first 
stumbling block of the confederation. State sovereign- 
ty, which in the collision of debate had become stiff" and 
intractable, insisted that, in the Congress of the Union, 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Virginia and Dela- 
4 



38 



ware, should each have one vote and no more. But 
when the burdens of the confederacy came to be appor- 
tioned, this equahty could no longer be preserved ; a 
different proportion became indispensable, and a terri- 
torial basis was assumed, apportioned to the value of 
improved land in each State. From the moment that 
these two questions were thus setded, it might have 
been foreseen that tlie confederacy must prove an abor*- 
tion. Inequality and injustice were at its root. It was 
inconsistent with itself, and the seeds of its speedy dis- 
solution were sown at its birth. 

But the question of the respective contributions of the 
several States, brought up another and still more formid- 
able cause of discord and collision. What were the sev- 
eral iStates themselves 1 What was their extent, and 
where vv-ere their respective boundaries ? They claimed 
their territory by virtue o^ charters from the British kings, 
and by cessions from sundry tribes of Indians. But the 
charters of the kings were grossly inconsistent with one 
another. The charters had granted lands to several 'of 
the States, by lines of latitude from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific ocean. Yet by the treaty of peace of February, 
1763, between Great Britain and France, the King of 
Great Britain had agreed that the boundary of the Brit- 
ish territories in North America should be the middle of 
the river Mississippi, from its source to the liver Iber- 
ville, and thence to the ocean. The British colonial set- 
tlements had never been extended westward of the Ohio, 
and when the peace should come to be eoncluded, it 
was exceedingly doubtful what western boundary could 
be obtained from the assent of Great Britain. Besides 
which, there were claims of Spain, and a system of pol- 
icy in France, in no wise encouraging to the expeetatiou 
of an extended western frontier to the United States. 



89 



Here then were collisions of interest between the States 
narrowly and definitely bounded westward, and the 
States claiming to the South sea or to the Mississippi, 
which it was in vain attempted to adjust. In the original 
draught of the articles of confederation, reported on the 
twelfth of July, among the powers proposed to be with- 
in the exclusive right of the United States assembled, 
were those of " limiting the bounds of those Colonies, 
which, by charter, or proclamation, or under any pretence, 
are said to extend to the South sea; and ascertaining 
those bounds of any other Colony that appear to be in- 
determinate : assigning territories for new Colonies, either 
in lands to be thus separated from Colonies, and hereto- 
fore purchased or obtained by the crown of Great Brit- 
ain of the Indians, or hereafter to be purchased or ob- 
tained from them : disposing of all such lands for the 
general benefit of all the United Colonies ; ascertaining 
boundaries to such new Colonies, within which forms ol' 
government are to be established on the principles oi' 
liberty." This had been struck out of the. revised arti- 
cles reported by the committee of the whole. A prop- 
osition was now made to require of the Legislatures of 
the several States, a description of their territorial lands, 
and documentary evidence of their claims, to ascertain 
theirboundaries by the articles of the confederation. This 
was rejected. Another proposition was, to bestow upon 
Congress the power to ascertain and fix the western 
boundary of the States claiming to the South sea, and to 
dispose of the lands beyond this boundary for the bene- 
fit of the Union. This also was rejected ; as was a sim- 
ilar proposal with regard to the States claiming to the 
Mississippi, or to the South sea. 

These were all unavailing efforts to restore to the de- 
finitive articles of confederation, the provisions concern- 



40 

ing the boundaries of the several States which had been 
reported in the original draught, and struck out of the 
draught reported by the committee of the whole, on the 
twentieth of August, 1776. An interval of fourteen 
months had since elapsed, which seemed rather to have 
weakened the spirit of union, and to have strength- 
ened the anti-social prejudices, and the lofty pretensions 
of State sovereignty. The articles containing the grant 
of powers to Congress, and prescribing restrictions upon 
those of the States, were fruitful of controversial ques- 
tions and of litigious passions, which consumed much of 
the time of Congress till the fifteenth of November, 1777, 
w^hen the articles of confederation, as finally matured and 
elaborated, were concluded and sent forth to the State 
Legislatures for their adoption. They were to take ef- 
fect only Mdien approved by them all, and ratified with 
their authority by their Delegates in Congress. It was 
provided, by One of the 'articles, tbCct YiQ «]^e'^^^':"5 ^'^ 
them should ever be admitted, unless sanctioned with 
the same unanimity. There was a solemn promise, in- 
serted in the concluding article, that the articles of con- 
federation should be inviolably observed by every State^ 
and that the Union should be perpetual. 

The consummation of the triumph of unlimited State 
sovereignty over the spirit of union, was seen in the 
transposition of the second and third of the articles re- 
ported by the committees, and the inverted order of 
their insertion in the articles finally adopted. 

The first article in them all gave the name, or as it 
Avas last called, the style, of the confederacy, " The 
United States of .America" The name, by which the 
nation has ever since been known, and now illustrious 
among the nations of the earth. The second articl<?, 
of the plans reported to the Congress by the original 



41 



committee and by the committee of the whole, con- 
stituted and declared the Union, in the first project 
commencing with those most affecting and ever-mem- 
orable words, — "The said Colonies unite them- 
selves so as never to be divided by any act whatever ;" 
In the project reported by the committee of the whole, 
these words were struck out, but the article still consti- 
tuted and declared the Union. The third article con- 
tained, in both projects, the rights reserved by the re- 
spective States ; rights of internal legislation and police, 
in all matters not interfering with the articles of the 
confederation. 

But on the fifteenth of November, 1777, when the par- 
tial, exclusive, selfish and jealous spirit of State sove- 
reignty had been fermenting and fretting over the arti- 
cles, stirring up all the oppositions of the corporate in- 
terests and humours of the parties, when the articles 
came to be concluded, the order of the second and third 
articles was inverted. The reservation of the rights of 
the separate States was made to precede the institution 
of the Union itself. Instead of hmiting the reservation 
to its municipal laws and the regulation and government 
of their internal police, in all matters not interfering with 
the articles of the confederation, they ascend the throne 
of State sovereignty, and make the articles of confedera- 
tion themselves mere specific exceptions to the general 
reservation of all the powers of government to them- 
selves. The article was in these words : "Each State 
retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and 
every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this 
confederation expressly delegated to the United State.s 
in Congress assembled." How different from the spirit 
of the article, which began, — " The said Colonies unite 
themselves so as never to be divided by any act what- 

4* 



42 



ever !" The institution of the Union was now postpon- 
ed to follow and not to precede the reservations ; and 
cooled into a mere league of friendship and of mutual 
defence between the States. More than sixteen months 
of the time of Congress had been absorbed in the prep- 
aration of this document. More than three years and 
four months passed away before its confirmation by the 
Legislatures of all the States, and no sooner was it rati- 
fied, than its utter inefliciency to perform the functions 
of a government, or even to fulfil the purposes of a con- 
federacy, became apparent to all ! In the Declaration of 
Independence, the members of Congress who signed it 
had spoken in the name and by the authority of the Peo- 
ple of the Colonies. In the articles of confederation they 
had sunk into Representatives of the separate States. 
The genius of unlimited State sovereignty had usurped 
the powers which belonged only to the People, and the 
State Legislatures and their Representatives had arro- 
gated to themselves the whole constituent power, while 
they themselves were Representatives only of fragments 
of the nation. 

The articles of confederation were satisfactory to no 
one of the States : they were adopted by many of them» 
after much procrastination, and with great reluctance. 
The State of Maryland persisted in withholding her rati- 
fication, until the question relating to the unsettled lands 
had been adjusted by cessions of them to the United 
States, for the benefit of them all, from the States separ- 
ately claiming them to the South sea, or the Mississippi. 
The ratification of the articles was completed on the first 
of March, 1781, and the experiment of a merely confed- 
erated Union of the thirteen States commenced. It was 
the statue of Pygmalion before its animation, — beautiful 
and hfeless. 



43 

And where was the vital spark which was to quicken 
this marble into hfe? It was in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Analyze, at this distance of time, the two 
documents, with cool and philosophical impartiality, and 
you will exclaim, — Never, never since the creation of the 
world, did two state papers, emanating from the same 
body of men, exhibit more dissimilarity of character, or 
more conflict of principle ! The Declaration, glowing 
with the spirit of union, speaking with one voice the 
vindication of one People for the act of separating them- 
selves from another, and ascending to the First Cause, 
the dispenser of eternal justice, for the foundation of its 
reasoning: — The articles of confederation, stamped with 
the features of contention ; beginning with niggardly res- 
ervations of corporate rights, and in the grant of powers, 
seeming to have fallen into the frame of mind described 
by the sentimental traveller, bargaining for a post chaise, 
and viewing his conventionist with an eye as if he was 
going with him to fight a duel ! 

Yet, let us not hastily charge our fathers with incon- 
sistency for these repugnances between their different 
works. Let us never forget that the jealousy of power 
is the watchful handmaid to the spirit of freedom. Let 
the contemplation of these rugged and narrow passes of 
the mountains first with so much toil and exertion trav- 
ersed by them, teach us that the smooth surfaces and 
rapid raihvays, which have since been opened to us, are 
but the means furnished to us of arriving by swifter con- 
vej'ance to a more advanced stage of improvement in 
our condition. Let the obstacles, which they encoun- 
tered and surmounted, teach us how much easier it is in 
morals and politics, as well as in natural philosophy and 
physics, to pull down than to build up, to demolish tiian 
to construct ; then, how much more arduous and diffi- 
cult was their task to form a system of polity for the 
people whom they ushered into the family of nations, 



44 

than to separate them from the parent State ; and lastly, 
the gratitude due from us to that Being whose provi- 
dence watched over, protected, and guided our political 
infancy, and led our ancestors finally to retrace their 
steps, to correct their errors, and resort to the whole 
People of the Union for a constitution of government, 
emanating from themselves, which might realize that un- 
ion so feelingly expressed by the first draught of their 
confederation, so as never to be divided by any act what- 
ever. 

The origin and history of this Constitution is doubtless 
familiar to most of my hearers, and should be held in 
perpetual remembrance by us all. It was the consum- 
mation of the Declaration of Independence. It has giv- 
en the sanction of half a century's experience to the 
principles of that Declaration. The attempt to sanction 
them by a confederation of sovereign States was made 
and signally failed. It was five years in coming to an 
immature birth, and expired after five years of languish- 
ing and impotent existence. 

On the seventeenth of next September, fifty years 
will have passed away since the Constitution of the Unit- 
ed States was presented to the People for their accept- 
ance. On that day the twenty-fifth biennial Congress, 
organized by this Constitution, will be in session. And 
what a happy, what a glorious career have the people 
passed through in the half century of their and your ex- 
istence associated under it ! When that Constitution was 
adopted, the States of which it was composed were thir- 
teen in number, — their whole population not exceeding 
three millions and a half of souls ; the extent of terri- 
tory within their boundary so large that it was believed 
too unwieldy to be manageable, even under one federa- 
tive government, but less than one million of square miles ; 
without revenue ; encumbered with a burdensome rev- 
olutionary debt, without means of discharging even the 



45 

annual interest accruing upon it ; with no manufactures ; 
with a commerce scarcely less restricted than before the 
revolutionary war ; denied by Spain the privilege of de- 
scending the Mississippi ; denied by Great Britain the 
stipulated possession of a line of forts on the Canadian 
frontier ; with a disastrous Indian war at the west ; with 
a deep-laid Spanish intrigue with many of our own citi- 
zens, to dismember the Union, and subject to the do- 
minion of Spain the whole valley of the Mississippi ; with 
a Congress, imploring a grant of new powers to enable 
them to redeem the public faith, answered by a flat re- 
fusal, evasive conditions, or silent contempt ; with popu- 
lar insurrection scarcely extinguished in this our own 
native Commonwealth, and smoking into flame in sever- 
al others of the States ; \\'ith an impotent and despised 
government ; a distressed, discontented, discordant peo- 
ple, and the fathers of the revolution burning with shame, 
and almost sinking into despair of its issue. — Fellow 
citizens of a later e:eneration I You, whosQ Jot it has 
])een to be born in happier times ; you, who even now 
are smarting under a transient cloud intercepting the 
daz-zling sun-shine of your prosperity ; — think you that 
the pencil of fancy has been borrowed to deepen the 
shades of this dark and desolate picture ? Ask of 
your surviving fathers, cotemporaries of him who now 
addresses you, — ask of them, whose hospitable man- 
sions often welcomed him to their firesides, when he 
came in early youth to receive instruction from the gi- 
gantic intellect andprofound learning of a Parsons, — ask 
of them, if there be any among you that survive, and 
they will tell you, that, far from being overcharged, the 
portraiture of that dismal day is only deficient in the faint- 
ness of its colouring and the lack of energy in the paint- 
er's hand. Such was the condition of this your beloved 
country after the close of the revolutionary war, under 
ihe blast of the desert, in the form of a confederacy ; 



46 

when, wafted, as on the spicy gales of Araby the blest, 
your Constitution, with Washington at its head, 

** Came o'er our ears like the sweet south 
That breathes upon a bank of violetS) 
Stealing and giving odour." 

And what, under that Constitution, still the supreme 
law of the land, is the condition of your country at this 
hour 1 Spare me the unwelcome and painful task of ad* 
verting to that momentary affliction, visiting you through 
the errors of your own servants, and the overflowing 
spring-tides of your fortunes. These afflictions, though 
not joyous but grievous, are but for a moment, and (be 
remedy for them is in your own hands. But what is 
the condition of your country, — resting upon foundations, 
if you retain and transmit to your posterity the spirit of 
your fathers, firm as the everlasting hills? What, look- 
ing beyond the mist of a thickened atmosphere, fleeting 
as the wind, and which the first breath of a zephyr will 
dispel, — what is the condition of your country ? Is a 
rapid and steady increase of population, an index to the 
welfare of a nation ? Your numbers are more than twice 
doubled in the half century since the Constitution was 
adopted as your fundamental law. Would those of you 
whose theories cling more closely to the federative ele- 
ment of your government, prefer the multiplication of 
States, to that of the People, as the standard test of 
prosperous fortunes ? The number of your free and in- 
dependent States has doubled in the same space of half 
a century, and your own soil is yet teeming with more. 
Is extent of territory, and the enlargement of borders, a 
blessing to a nadon ? And are you not surfeited with 
the aggrandizement of your territory 7 Instead of one 
million of square miles, have you not more than two 1 
.Aj-e not Louisiana and both the Floridas yours ? Instead 
of sharing with Spain and Britain the contested waters 
gf the Mississippi, have you not stretched beyond them 



47 

westward, bestrided the summits of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and planted your stripes and your stars on the 
shores of the Pacific ocean ? And, as if this were not 
enough to fill the measure of your greatness, is not half 
Mexico panting for admission to your Union ? Are not 
the islands of the Western Hemisphere looking with 
wistful eyes to a participation of your happiness, and a 
promise ol your protection ? Have not the holders of 
the Isthmus of Panama sent messengers of friendlr 
greeting and sohcitation to be received as members of 
your confederation 1 Is not the most imminent of your 
dangers that of expanding beyond the possibility of cohe- 
sion, even under one federative government; — and of 
tainting your atmosphere with the pestilence of exotic 
slavery ? 

Are the blessings of good government manifested br 
the enjoyment of liberty, by the security of property, by 
the freedom of thought, of speech, of action, pervading 
every portion of the community ? Appeal to your own 
experience, my fellow^ citizens ; and, after answering with- 
out hesitation or doubt, afiirmatively, all these enquiries, 
save the last, — if, when you come to them, you pause before 
you answer, — if, within the last five or seven years ofyoin- 
history, ungracious recollections of untoward events crowd 
upon your memory, and grate upon the feelings appro- 
priate to this consecrated day, — let them not disturb the 
serenity of your enjoyments, or interrupt the harmony 
of that mutual gratulation, in which you may yet all cor- 
dially join. But fix well in your minds, what were the 
principles first proclaimed by your forefathers, as the 
only foundations of lawful government upon earth. — 
Postpone the conclusion, of their application to the re- 
quirements of your own duties, till to-morrow; — hut then 
fa"il not to remember the warnings, while reaping in 
peace and pleasantness the rewards, of this happy day. 

And this, my fellow citizens, or I have mistaken th« 



48 

motives by which you have been actuated, is the pur- 
pose for which you are here assembled. It is to enjoy 
the bounties of heaven for the past, and to prepare for 
the duties of the future. It is to review the principles 
proclaimed by the founders of your empire ; to examine 
what has been their operation upon your own destinies, 
and upon the history of mankind ; to scrutinize with an 
observing eye, and a cool, dehberate judgment, your 
condition at this day ; to compare it with that of your 
fathers on the day which you propose to commemorate ; 
and to discern what portion of their principles has been 
retained inviolate, — what portion of them has been weak- 
ened, impaired, or abandoned ; and w hat portion of them 
it is your first of duties to retain, to preserve, to redeem, 
to transmit to your offspring, to be cherished, maintain- 
ed, and transmitted to their posterity of unnumbered 
ages to come. 

We have consulted the records of the past, and I 
have appealed to your consciousness of the present ; 
and what is the sound, which they send forth to all the 
echoes of futurity, but Union; — Union as o/ze People, — 
Union so as to be divided by no act whatever. We have 
a sound of modern days, — could it have come from an 
American voice ? — that the value of the Union is to be 
calculated ! — Calculated ? By wdiat system of Arithme- 
tic 1 By what rule of proportion 7 Calculate the value 
of maternal tenderness and of fiUal affection ; calculate 
the value of nuptial vovvs, of compassion to human 
suff'ering, of sympathy with afliietion, of piety to God, 
and of charity to man ; calculate the value of all that is 
precious to the heart, and all that is binding upon the 
soul ; and then you will have the elements with w^hich 
to calculate the value of the Union. But if cotton or 
tobacco, rocks or ice, metallic money or mimic paper, 
are to furnish the measure, the stamp act was the inven- 
tion of a calculating statesman. 



49 



** Great financier ! stupendous calculator .'" 
And what the result of his system of computation was 
to the treasury of Great Britain, that will be the final 
settlement of every member of this community, who cal- 
culates, with the primar\^ num.bers of State sovereignty 
and nullification, the value of the Union. 

Our government is a comphcated machine. We hold 
for an inviolable first principle, that the People are the 
source of all lawful authority upon earth. But we have 
one People to be governed by a legislative representa- 
tion of fifteen millions of souis, and twent3--six Peoples, 
of numbers varying from less than one hundred thousand 
to more than two millions, governed for their internal 
police by legislative and executive magistrates of their 
own choice, and by laws of their own enacting ; 
and all forming in the aggregate the o«c People, as which 
they are known to the other nations of the civilized 
world. We have twenty-six States, with governments 
administered by these separate Legislatures and Execu- 
tii'e Chiefs, and represented by equal numbers in thv 
general Senate of the nation. This organization is an 
anomaly in the history of the world. It is that, whicl: 
distinguishes us from all other nations ancient and mod- 
ern ; from the simple monarchies and repubhcs of Eu- 
rope ; and from all the confederacies, which have figurec' 
i-n any age upon the face of the globe. The seeds o 
thi^ complicated machine, were all sown in the Declara 
tiom of Independence ; and their fruits can never be erad 
icated but by the dissolution of the Union. The calcii 
lators of the value of the Union, who ^vould palm upoi ; 
you, in the place of this sublime invention, a mere dus- 
tier of sovereign confederated States, do but sow the winci 
to reap the whirlwind. One lamentable evidence o. 
deep degeneracy from the spirit of the Declaration v 



50 



Independence, is the countenance, which has been occa- 
i-ioHally given, in various parts of the Union, to this doc- 
trine ; but it is consolatory to know that, whenever it has 
been distinctly disclosed to the people, it has been re- 
jected by them with pointed reprobati m. It has, indeed, 
prf-esented itself in its most malignant form in that por- 
tion of the Union, the civil institutions of which are most 
infected with the gangrene of slavery. The inconsis- 
tency of the institution of domestic slavery with the 
principles of the Declaration of Independence, was seen 
and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolu- 
tion ; by no one with deeper and more unalterable con- 
viction, than by the author of the Declaration himself. No 
charge of insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their 
charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of 
attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They uni- 
versally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them 
by the unnaturalstep-mother country, and they saw that 
before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, 
slavery, in common ^^ith every other mode of oppres- 
sion, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the 
ecrth. Such v.as the undoubting conviction of Jefferson 
to his dving day. In the Memoir of his Life, written at 
the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the 
solemn and emphatic warning, that the day was not dis- 
tant when they must hear and adopt the general eman- 
cipation of their slaves. "Nothing is mere certainly 
written," said he, "in the book of fate, than that these 
people t-re to be free." * My countrymen ! it is writtea 
in a better volume than the book of fate ; it is written in 
the laws of Nature and of Nature's God. 

We are now told, indeed, by the learned doctors of the 
nullification school, that colour operates as a forfeitwre of 

' Jefferson's Writings, vol. 1, p ^iO. 



51 



fhe rights of human uatiu-e ; that a dark skm turns a man 
into a chattel; that crispy hair transforinb a human be- 
ing into a four-footed bcac^t. The master-priest informs 
you, that slavery is consecrated and sanctified by the 
Holy Scriptures of the old and new Testament ; that 
Hani was the father of Canaan, and that all his posterity 
were doomed by his own father to be hewers of wood 
and drawers of water to the descendants of Shem and 
Japhet ; that the native Americans of African descent 
Rire iliQ children of Ham, with the curse of Noah still 
fastened upon them ; and the native Americans of Europ- 
ean descent are children of Japhet, pure Anglo-Saxon 
blood, born to command^ and to hve by the sweat of an- 
other's brow. The master-philosopl er teaciies you that 
davery is no curse, but a blessing! — that Providence — 
Providence ! has so ordered it that this country should 
be inhabited by two races of men, one born to wield ilie 
scourge, and the other to bear the record of its stripes 
upon his back, one to earn through a toilsome life the 
other's bread, and to feed him on a bed of roses ; that 
slavery is the guardian and promoter of wisdom and 
virtue ; that the slave, by labouring for another's enjoy- 
ment, learns disinterestedness, and humility, and to melt 
with tenderness and afiection for his master ; that the 
master, nurtured, clotlied, and sheltered by another's 
toils^ learns to be generous and grateful to the slave, and 
sometimes to feel for him as a father for his child ; tha'', 
released from the necessity of supplying his own wants, 
he acquii>es opportunity of leisure to improve his mind, 
to purify his heart, to cultivate his taste ; tliat he has timo 
on his hands to plunge into the depths of philosophy, 
and to soar to the clear empyrean of seraphic moralitj'. 
The master-statesman, — ay, the statesman in the land 
o( the Declaration of Independence, — in the halls of na- 



52 

tional legislation, with the muse of history recording hi^ 
words as they drop from his lips, — with the colossal fig- 
ure of American liberty, leaning on a column entwined 
with the emblem of eternity^ over his head, — with the 
forms of Washington and La Fayette, speaking to him 
from the canvass, — turns to the image of the father of his^ 
country, and forgetting that the last act of hi«- Me was (o 
emancipate his slaves, to bolster the cause of slavicrv 
says, — lliat man was a slaveholder. 

My couutrymeii ! these are the tenets of the modern 
nulhfication school. Can you wonder that they shrmk 
from the light of free discussion? That they skulk from 
the grasp of freedom and of truth? Is there among you 
one who hears me, solicitous above all things for the 
preservation of the Union so tRily dear to us,- — of that 
Union, proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, — 
of that Union, never to be divided by any act whatever, — 
and who dreads that the discirssion of the merits of 
slavery will endanger the continuance of the Union? 
Let him discard his terroi'S, and be assured that they are 
no other than the phantom fears of nullification ; that 
while doctrines like these are iaught in her school's of 
philosophy, preached in her pulpits, and avowed in her 
legislatjve councils, the fi°ee and unrestrained discussion 
of the rights and wrongs of slavery, far from endangering 
the union of these States, is the only condition upor^ 
which that union can. be preserved and perpetuated. 
What ! Are you to be told with one breath, that the tFan- 
scendent glory of this day consists in the proclamation 
that all lawful govemmeat is founded on the unalienable 
rights of man, and with the next breath that you must 
not whisper this tiiith to the winds, lest they should 
taint the atmosphere with freedom, and kindle the flame 
of insurrection ? Are you to bless the earth beueatli 



53 

your ket, because she spurns the footstep of a slave, 
and then to choke the utterance of your voice, lest the 
sound of liberty should be re-echoed from the palmetto 
groves, mingled with the discordant notes of disunion ? 
No ! no ! Freedom of speech is the only safety valve, 
which, under the high pressure of slavery, can preserve 
your political boiler from a fearkil and fatal explosion. 
Let it be admitted that slavery is an institution of inter- 
nal police, exclusively subject to the separate jurisdic- 
tion of the States where it is ch:3rished as a blessing, or 
tolerated as an evil as yet irremediable. But let that 
slavery, which intrenches herself within the walls of her 
own impregnable fortress, not sally forth to conquest 
over the domain of freedom. Intrude not beyond the 
hallowed bounds of oppression ; but if you have by sol- 
emn compact doomed your ears to hear the distant 
clanking of the chain, let not the fetters of the slave be 
forged afresh upon your own soil ; far less permit them 
to be rivetted upon your own feet. Quench not the 
spirit of freedom. Let it go forth, — not in the panoply 
of fleshly wisdom, but with the promise of peace, and 
the voice of persuasion, clad in the whole annaar of 
tnith, — conquering and to conquer. 

Friends and fellow citizens! I speak to you with the 
voice as of one risen from the dead. Were I now, as I 
shortly must be, cold in my grave, and could the sepul- 
chre unbar its gates, and open to me a passage to this 
desk, devoted to the worship of almighty God, I would 
repeat the question with which this discourse was in- 
troduced : — " Why are you assembled in this place" ? — 
and one of you would answer me for all,— r. Because the 
Declaration of Lidependence, with the voice of an angel 
from heaven, " put to his mouth the sounding a[cheiny," 
md proclaimed universal emancipation upon earth ! Jt 

5* 



54 



is not the separation of your forefathers from their 
kindred race beyond the Atlantic tide. It is not the 
linion of thirteen British Colonies into one People and 
the entrance of that People upon the theatre, where king- 
doms, and empires, and nations are the persons of the 
drama. It is not that this is the birth-day of the North 
American Union, the last and noblest offspring of time. 
It is that the first words uttered by the Genius of our 
country, in announcing his existence to the world of 
mankind, was, — Freedom to the slave ! Liberty to the 
captives ! Redemption ! redemption forever to the race 
of man, fix>m the yoke of oppression ! It is not the work 
of a day; it is not the labour of an age ; it is not the con- 
summation of a century^ that we are assembled to com- 
memorate. It is the emancipation of our race. It is the 
emancipation af man from the thraldom of man !- 

And is this the language of enthusiasm ? The dream of 
a distempered fancy ? Is it not rather the voice of in- 
spiration ? The language of holy writ ? Why is it that 
the Scriptures, both of the old and new Covenant, teach 
you upon every page to look forward to the time, when 
the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall 
lie down with the kid ? Why is it that six hundred years 
before the birth of theRedeemer,the sublimest of proph- 
ets, with lips touched by the hallowed fire from the hand 
of God,, spake and said,—" The Spirit of the Lord God is. 
upon me ; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 
good tidings unto the meek ; he haths<?«^ me to bind up 
the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty ta the captives^ 
raid the opening of the prison to them that are bound ?"*" 
And. why is it, that, at the first dawn of the fulfilment of 
this prophesy, ^- at the birth-day of the Saviour in the 
lowest condition of human existence, — the angel of the 

♦ I«»iah. 61 • u 



55 



Lord came in a flood of supernatural light upon the 
shepherds, witnesses of the scene and said, — Fear not, 
for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which 
shall be to all people 7 Why is it, that there was Sud- 
denly with that angel, a multitude of the heavenly 
hosts, praising God, and saying, — Glory to God in 
the highest, and on earth peace, — good will toward 
men?* 

What are the good tidings of great joy, which shall be 
to all people ? The prophet had told you six hundred 
years before, — liberty to the captives, — the opening of the 
prison to them that are bound. — The multitude of the 
heavenly host pronounced the conclusion, to be 
shouted hereafter by the universal choir of all intelligent 
created beings, — Glory to God in the highest; and oi 
earth peace, — good will toward men. 

Fellow citizens ! fellow christians ! fellow men ! Am 
I speaking to believers in the gospel of peace ? To oth- 
ers, I am aware that the capacities of man for self or so- 
cial improvement are subjects of distrust, or of derision. 
The sincere believer receives the rapturous promises of 
the future improvement of his kind, with humble hope 
and cheering confidence of their final fulfilment. He re- 
ceives them too, with the admonition of God to his con- 
science, to contribute himself, by all the aspirations of his 
heart, and all the faculties of his soul, to their accom- 
plishment. Tell not him of impossibilities, when human 
improvement is the theme. Nothing can be impossible, 
which may be effected by human will. See what has 
been effected ! An attentive reader of the history of 
mankind, whether in the words of inspiration, or in the 
records of antiquity, or in the memory of his own expe- 
rieice, must perceive that the gradual improvement of 



# Luke^ 2 , 9, 10, 13j H. 



56 

his own condilion upon earth is the inextinguishable 
mark of distinction between the animal man, and every 
other animated being, with the innumerable multitudes of- 
which every element of this sublunary globe is peopled. 
And yet, from the earliest records of time, this animal is 
the only one in the visible creation, who preys upon his 
kind. The savage man destroys and devours his cap- 
tive foe. The partially civihzed man spares his life, but 
makes him his slave. In the progress of civihzation, 
both the life and liberty of the enemy vanquished or dis- 
armed are spared ; ransoms for prisoners are given and 
received. Progressing still in the paths to perpetual 
peace, exchanges are established, and restore the 
prisoner of war to his country and to the enjoyment of 
ail his rights of property and of person. A custom, 
first introduced by mutual special convention, grows into 
a settled rule of the laws of nations, that persons occu- 
pied exclusively upon the arts of peace, shall with their 
property remain wholly unmolested in the conflicts of 
nations by arms. We ourselves have been bound by 
solemn engagements with one of the most warlike na- 
tions of Europe, to observe this rule, even in the utmost 
extremes of war ; and in one of the most merciless 
periods of modern times, I have seen, towards the close 
of the last century, three members of the Society of 
Frtends, with Barclay's Apology and Penn's Maxim? 
in their hands, pass, peaceful travellers through the em- 
battled hosts of France and Britain, unharmed, and 
unmolested, as the three children of Israel in the furnace 
of Nebuchadnezzar. 

War, then, by the common consent and mere will of 
civilized man, has not only been divested of its most atro- 
cious cruelties, but for multitudes, growing multitudes 
of individuals, has already been and is ahohshed. Why 



57 



should it not be abolished for all? Let it be impressed 
upon the heart of every one of you, — impress it upon 
the minds of your children, that this, total abolition of 
war upon earth, is an improvement in the condition of 
man, entirely dependant on his own will. He cannot 
repeal or change the laws of physical nature. He can- 
not redeem himself from th-e ills that llesh is heir to ; 
but the ills of war and slavery are all of his own crea- 
tion. He has -but to will, and he effects the cessation of 
them altogether. 

The improrements in the condition of mankind upon 
earth have been achieved from time to time by slow 
progression, sometimes retarded, by long stationar}'' pe- 
riods, and even by retrograde movements towards 
primitive barbarism. The Invention of the alphabet 
and of printing are separated from each other by an 
interval of more than three thousand years. The art of 
navigation loses its origin in the darkness of antiquity ; 
but the polarity of the magnet was yet undiscovered 
in the twelfth century of the Christian era ; nor, when 
discovered, was it till three centuries later, that it dis- 
closed to the European man, the continents of North 
and South America. The discovery of the laws of 
gravitation, and the still more recent application of the 
power of steam, have made large additions to the phys- 
ical powers of man ; and the inventions of machinery, 
within our own memory, have multiplied a thousand fold 
the capacities of improvement practicable by the agency 
of a single hand. 

It is surely in the order of nature, as well as in the pro- 
mises of inspiration, that the moral improvement in ib^ 
condition of man, should keep pace with the multiplica- 
tion of his physical capacities, comforts, and enjoyments. 
The mind, while exerting its energies in the pursuit of hap- 



58 



piiiess upon matter, cannot remain inactive or powerless 
to operate upon itself. The mind of the mariner, lloat- 
ing upon the ocean, dives to the bottom of the deep, and 
ascends to the luminaries of the skies. The useful man- 
uiactures exercise and sharpen the ing^enuity of the 
workman ; the libej'ul sciences absorb the silent medi- 
cations of the student ; the elegant arts soiten the tem- 
per and refme the taste of the artist ; and all in concert 
contribute to the expansion of the intellect and the puri- 
hcation of the moral sense of our species. But man is 
a gregarious aniinal. Association is the second law of 
In.s nature, as self-preservation is the first. The most 
pressing want of association is government, and the gov- 
ernment of nature is the I atiiarchal law, the authority 
of the parent over his children. ^Vith the division of 
iamilies commences the conflict of interests. Avarice 
and ambition, jealousy and envy, take possession of the 
luur.an heart and kindle the flames oi w.ir. Then it is 
that the laws of Nature become perverted, and the rul- 
ing passion of man is the destruction of his fellow-crea- 
ture, man. This is the origin and the character of war, 
in the iirst stages of human societies. But war, waged 
by communities, requires a leader with absolute and un- 
controuled command ; and hence it is that monarchy 
and war have one and the same origin, and Nirarod, the 
mighty hunter before the Lord, was the first king and 
the first conqueror upon the record of time. 

" A mighty hunter, and hi 5 prey was man." 

In process of time, when the passions of hatretl, and fear, 
and revenge, have been glutted with the destruction of 
vanquished enemies, — when mercy claims her tribute 
from the satiated yet unsatislied heart, and cupidity 
whispers that the life of the captive may be turned to 
useful account to the victor, — the practice of sparing his 



5D 

lite on condition of his submission to perpetual slavery 
was introduced, and that was the condition of the Asiatic 
nations, and among them of the kingdoms of Israel and 
of Judah, when the prophesies of Isaiah were dehvered. 
Then it was that this further great improvement in the 
condition of mankind was announced by the burning lips 
of the prophet. Then it was that the voice commis- 
sioned from Heaven proclaimed good tidings to the 
meek, mercy to the afflicted, liberty to the captives, 
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. 

It is generally admitted by Christians of all denomin- 
ations, that the fulfilment of this prophesy commenced at 
tfee birth of the Redeemer, six hundred years after it 
was promulgated. That it did so commence was ex- 
pressly affirmed by Jesus himself, who, on his appear- 
ance in his missionary character at Nazareth, we are told 
by the gospel of Luke, went into the synagogue on the 
sabbath-day, and stood up to read. And there was 
delivered to him the book oi the prophet Isaiah. And 
when he had opened the book, he found this very pas- 
sage which I have cited. "The Spirit of the Lord God 
is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to 
preach good tidings unto the meek ; he hath sent me to 
bind up the broken hearted ; to proclaim liberty to the 
cqpticcs, and the opening of the prison to them that are 
bound ! And he closed the book, and gave it again to 
the minister, and sat down."* 

This was the deliberate declaration of the earthly ob- 
ject of his mission. He merely read the passage from 
the book of Isaiah. He returned the book to the min- 
ister, and, without application of what he had read, sat 
down. But that passage had been written six hundred 
years before. It was universally understood to refer to 
the expected Messiah. With what astonishment then 
must the worshippers in the synagogue of Nazaretk 

* Luke, 4: 17, 18,20,21, 



60 

have seen himy an luiknown stranger, in the prime of 
manhood, stand up to read ; on receiving the book, de- 
hberately select and read that particular passage of the 
prophet; and without another word, close the volume, 
return it to the minister, and sit down ! The historian 
adds, " and the eyes of all them that were in the syna- 
gogue, were fastened on him. And he began to say 
unto them. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your 
ears.^* 

The advent of the Messiah, so long expected, was 
then self-declared. That day was that scripture fulfiRed 
in their ears. They had heard him, at once reading 
from the book of the prophet, and speaking in the first 
person, declaring that the Spirit of the Lord God was 
upon himself They heard him give a reason for this 
effluence of the Spirit of God upon him ; because the 
Lord had anointed him to preach good tidings to the 
meek. They had heard him expressly affirm that the 
Lord had sent him to bind up the broken hearted ; to 
proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the 
prison to them that are bound. The prophesy will 
therefore be fulfilled, not only in the ears, but in the 
will and in the practice, of mankind. But how many 
generations of men, how many ages of time, will pass 
away before its entire and final fulfilment? Alas ! 
more than eighteen hundred years have passed away 
since the fulfilment of thi-t scripture, which announced 
the advent of the Saviour, and the blessed object of 
his mission. How long — Oh I how long will it be be- 
fore that object itself shall be accomplished 7 Not yet 
are we permitted to go out with joy, and to be led 
forth with peace. Not yet shall the mountains and t-he 
hills break forth before us into singing, and all the trees 
of the field clap their hands. Not yet shall the fir- 
tree come up instead of the thorn, nor the myrtle-tree 
instead of the brier. But let no one despair of the 



61 

final accomplishment of the whole prophesy. Still 
shall it be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting 
sign that shall not he cut off* The prediction of the 
prophet, the self- declaration of the Messiah, and his 
annunciation of the objects of his mission, have been 
and are fulfilled, so far as depended upon his own 
agency. He declared himself anointed to preach good 
tidings to the meek ; and faithfully was that mission 
performed. He declared himself sent to bind up the 
broken hearted ; and this, too, how faithfully has it been 
performed ! Yes, through all ages since his appearance 
upon earth, he has preached, and yet preaches, good 
tidings to the meek. He has bound up, he yet binds 
up the broken hearted. He said he was sent to pro- 
claim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the 
prison doors to them that are bound. But the execu- 
tion of that promise was entrusted to the will of man. 
Twenty centuries have nearly passed away, and it is yet 
to be performed. But let no one surrender his Chris- 
tian faith, that the Lord of creation will, in his own good 
time, realize a declaration made in his name, — made in 
words such as were never uttered by the uninspired lips 
of man, — in words worthy of omnipotence. The pro- 
gress of the accomplishment of the prophesy is slow. 
It has baffled the hopes, and disappointed the wishes, of 
generation after generation of men. Yet, observe well 
the history of the human family since the birth of the 
Saviour, and you will see great, remarkable, and pro- 
gressive approximations towards it. Such is the preva- 
lence, over so large a portion of the race of man, of the 
doctrines promulgated by Jesus and his apostles, — les- 
sons of peace, of benevolence, of meekness, of brotherly 
love, of charity, — all utterly incompatible with the fero- 
cious spirit of slavery. Such is the total extirpation of 
the licentious and romantic religion of the heathen world. 

* Isaiah, iio : 12. 13. 



62 



Such is the incontrovertible decline and approaching 
dissokition of the sensual and sanguinary religion of Ma- 
homet. Such is the genei-al subsUtution of the Chris- 
tian faith for the Jewish dispensation of the Levitical 
law. Such is the modern system of the European law 
of nations, founded upon the laws of Nature, which is 
gradually reducing the intercourse between sovereign 
states to an authoritative code of international law. 
Such is the wider and wider expansion of public opinion, 
already commensurate with the faith of Christendom ; 
holding emperors, and kings, and pontiffs, and republics, 
responsible before its tribunals, and recalliiig them from 
all injustice and all oppression to the standard maxims of 
Christian benevolence and mercy, always animated with 
the community of principles promulgated by the Gospel, 
and armed with a two edged sword, more rapid and con- 
suming than the thunder bolt, by the invention of printing. 

But of all the events tending to the blessed accom- 
pUshment of the prophesy so often repeated in the book 
of Isaiah, and re-proclaimed by the multitude of the 
heavenly host at the birth of the Saviour, there is not 
one that can claim, since the propagation of the Chris- 
tian faith, a tenth, nay a hundredth part of the influence 
of the resolution, adopted on the second day of July, 
1776, and promulgated to the world, in the Declaration 
of Independence, on the fourth of that month, of which 
this is the sixty^first anniversary. And to prove this 
has been the theme of my discourse. 

And now, friends and fellow citizens, what are the 
duties thence resulting to yourselves ? Need I remind 
you of them ? You feel that they are not to waste in 
idle festivity the hours of this day, — to your fathers, 
when they issued their decree, the most solemn hours 
of their lives. It is because this day is consecrated to 
the cause of human liberty, that you are here assembled ; 
and if the connection of that cause, with the fulfilment 



63 

of those clear, specific predictions of the greatest of the 
Hebrew prophets, re-announced and repeated by the 
unnumbered voices of the heavenly host, at the birth of 
the Saviour, has not heretofore been traced and exhibit- 
ed in the celebrations of this day, may I not hope for 
your indulgence in presenting to you a new ray of glory 
in the halo that surrounds the memory of the day of 
your national independence ? Yes ; from that day forth 
shall the nations of the earth hereafter say, with the 
prophet, — "How beautiful upon the mountains are the 
feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth 
peace !"* " From that day forth shall they exclaim, 
Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth ; and break forth 
into singing, O mountains ! for the Lord hath comforted 
his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted."t 
From that day fortli, to the question, — "Shall the prey be 
taken fj'om the mighty, or the lawful captive be deliver- 
ed?" — shall be returned the answer of the prophet, — "But 
thus saith the Lord, — Even the captives of the mighty 
shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall 
be delivered ; for I will contend with him that contends 
with thee, and I will save thy children." — " From that 
day forth, shall they say, commenced the opening of the 
last seal of prophetic fehcity to the race of man upon 
earth, when the Lord God shall judge among the na- 
tions, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat 
their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into 
pruning hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against na- 
tion, neither shall they learn war any more."t 

My countrymen ! I would anxiously desire, and with 
a deep sense of responsibility, bearing upon myself and 
upon you, to speak to the hearts of you all. Are there 
among you those, doubtful of the hopes or distrustful of 
the promises of the Gospel? Are there among you those, 
who disbelieve them altogether? Bear with me one 

* Isaiah, ■"/: ; 7. | Isaiah, 19 , M, 24, 2o. I Isaiah, '2, 4. 



64 

moment longer. Let us admit, for a moment, that the 
prophesies of Isaiah have no reference to the advent of 
the Saviour ; — let us admit that the passage in the Gos- 
pel of Luke, in which he so directly makes the applica- 
tion of this particular prophesy to himself, is an interpola- 
tion ; — go further, and if, without losing your reverence 
for the God to whom your fathers, in their Declaration 
of Independence, made their appeal, you can shake off 
all belief, both of the prophesies and revelations of the 
Scriptures ; — suppose them all to be fables of human in- 
vention ; yet say with me, that thousands of years have 
passed away since these volumes were composed, and 
have been believed by the most enlightened of mankind 
as the oracles of truth ; — say, that they contain the high 
and cheering promise, as from the voice of God himself, 
of that specific future improvement in the condition of 
man, which consists in the extirpation of slavery and war 
from the face of the earth. Sweep from the pages of 
history all the testimonies of the Scriptures, and beheve 
no more in the prophesies of Isaiah, than in those of the 
Cumaean sybil; but acknowledge that in both there is 
shadowed forth a future improvement in the condition of 
our race, — an improvement of good tidings to the meek; 
of comfort to the broken hearted ; of deliverance to the 
captives ; of the opening of the prison to them that are 
bound. Turn then your faces and raise your hands to 
God, and pray that, in the merciful dispensations of his 
providence, he would hasten that happy time. Turn to 
yourselves, and, in the Declaration of Independence of 
your fathers, read the command to you, by the unremit- 
ting exercise of your highest energies, to hasten, your- 
selves, its consummation ! 



APPENDIX. 



On the arrival of Mn. Adams in Newbury, on the day pre- 
vious to the celebration, he was met by the Committee of 
Arrangements, accompanied by a large body of the citizens 
of Newbury and Newburyport, in behalf of whom he was 
addressed by Samuel T. Deford, Esq.. as Chairman of 
the Committee of Arrangements, to the following effect: — 

Sir, — In behalf of the citizens of Newburyport, and at 
the request, also, of the municipal authorities of the ancient town of 
Newbury, I congratulate you on your safe arrival amongst us. 
You see, in the glad countenances around you, a proof of the joy 
you confer upon your friends, who are present on this occasion, 
and also evidence of anticipated happiness, when they will soon 
behold you surrounded by numerous friends, who are impatient 
to greet you on your entrance into Newburyport. 

To one, who, like yourself, has resided in early life amid these 
scenes, and those which you are now again about to witness after 
an absence of many years, — the recollection of incidents that 
may have laid their impressions too deep in your memory even 
now to be forgotten, — the remembrance of friends and acquaint- 
ances, who were of those days, but who now are passed away, — 
the joys and the sorrows that may crowd upon your feelings on 
recurring to that period, — will iind rcspuntio in the hearts of 
many, who, as I have said before, arc ready io greet you. 



66 



Our friends may di'?, and tliose we Idvo (iiny leave us ; but still 
our fields are green and beautiliil ; and the Old Town hills will 
yet endure ; and the Merrimack, free and fair, rolls on its wont- 
«d course, bearing its tri')utc of waters to tlie Ocean, as you may 
almost see but yonder, — to that Oviean, for whose rights of navi- 
gation and for whose free use your country owes you so much. 

I again present to you the coidial welcome of your numerous 
friends, in whose behalf I act. 



To which Mr Adams replied us follows: — 

Mu. Chairman — Genti.emen of the Committee of Ar- 
rangements: — When the heart is full, the power of expression 
is often found to fail, under the weight of feelings too intense to 
find utterance in words. So it is with me at this moment ; and 
if I am unable to express to you the sensibility with which I am 
affected, by the kindness with which the citizens of Newbury- 
port, and yon in their behalf, are pleased to welcome me to this 
place, endeared to me by the indelible impressions of early 
youth, but from which the destinies of a long and wandering life 
have since kept me many years removed, I pray you to be asaur- 
pd that it is not the deep feeling of gratitude, but the power to 
(express it, that is wanting. 

The present season completes fifty years, since I came as a 
student at law, to reside for a term of three years at Newbury- 
port. The beautiful natural scenery around me is familiar to my 
niemory now, as it was to my frequent visitation then, — The face 
of nature has so little changed, that, standing on this spot, I 
seem to fill the long interval of time since elapsed, as were it 
but one day \ — but I look around me, and the faces are no lon- 
ger the same. 

Yet, this numerous as.semi)lage of citizens, yon cavalcade of 
youthful horsemen, those cheerful and lively countenances of 
children before us, most Ibrcibly remind me of a similar scene, 
of which, during my residence at Newburyporl, I was on the 
same spot a witness, and a participator-. — I mean, the reception 
of the first President of the United States, upon his visit, on the 
first year of his Presidency, to this place. As an inhabitant of 
Newbury port, I was one of those who then greeted him with a 
hearty welcome ; and nothing is more deeply fixed in my memory 
than the procession of children of both sexes, through which he 
passed, upon hi.-.- •3utrauc(. intr. ihe town. 



67 

How nafurnlly the qnostion arises to my imiiKl, where are now 
those children ? And how affecting is the thought, surely more 
than a conjecture, that I see before me the representatives of 
many of them in their grand-chiklren, now in my eye. liittlc did 
I then imagine that the day would come, when I should witness 
so delightful a repetition of the scene. 

Gentlemen, I can but repeat the request, that if I am unable 
to express, in adequate language, my sense of the kindness of the 
citizens of Newburyport on the present occasion, you would at- 
tribute the deficiency, not to the emotions of tiie heart, but to 
the utterance of them in words ; and if, as you have been pleased 
to intimate, it has been, in the course of my public life, in any 
station which I have occupied, my good fortune to render to the 
inhabitants of Newburyport, or to any one of them any accepta- 
ble service, their recollection of it is more than an adequate re- 
ward to me, and could my most earnest wishes be realized, they 
would be to have multiplied such services an hundred and a thou- 
sand fold. 



Letter addressed by Mr Adams to the Chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Arrangements: 

QuixNCY, July 17th, 1837. 

Dear Sir, — I enclose herewith the manuscript of the Ora- 
tion, prepared for delivery on the 4th instant, at Newburyport, 
in compliance with the invitation of the inhabitints of that town. 
The parts of it, omitted in the delivery, are pencil marked in the 
margin ; the omissions were for the single purpose of sparing the 
time and patience cf my respected auditory. The omitted parts 
are all cumulative illustrations of the double argument of the 
Discourse, — the principle of perpetual Union, inculcated by the 
Declaration of Independence, and the inseparable connection of 
the doctrines promulgated by that paper, with the progress and 
final consummation of the ancient prophesies and gospel promises 
of the Christian faith. The publication of the whole would be 
most satisfactory to me; but if the Committee of Arrangements 
would prefer the publication of only the parts delivered, the pen- 
cil marks will indicate them to the printer. I place the whole at 
your disposal. 



J4^4l 



68 

I shall, for the rcMTiaindor of my days, consider this visit to 
Newhuryport as one of the most memorable incidents of my life. 
The mere circumstance of revisiting, after an interval of fifty 
years, the scene of my abode, at the time of life at once of the 
expansion of the mind, and of the deepest impressions upon the 
heart, was itself inexpressibly interesting. The kindness and 
cordiality of your reception, so congenial to that which I had ev- 
er experienced from the forefathers of the present town, linking, 
with a pleasing and a tender melancholy, the enjoyments of the 
passing day with most delightful associations of a departed age, 
will dwell upon my memory, while she holds a seat in my bosom. 
Circumstances in rny own life have rendered the anniversary of 
our independence, to me, a day, not only of festive enjoyment, 
but of awful solemnity ; for it is also the anniversary of my fath- 
er's death. Drawing, myself, so rapidly to the close of my own 
career, it will not be surprizing i\\B.i the impressions, under which 
the enclosed discourse was written, were of a religious character ; 
and entertaining sincerely the opinion, that the continual appeal, 
in the Declaration of Independence, to a rule o( right transcend- 
ing all human power, and that the principles irresistibly flowing 
from the rule of right, or of eternal justice, must lead to the ex- 
tinction of slavery and of war from the earth, 

I deem it fortunate to have had the opportunity afforded by 
this invitation of the inhabitants of Newburyport, of disclosing to 
my countrymen, so shortly before I shall cease to be with them, 
not only my own adherence to the principles of the Declaration, 
but my firm belief that the hand of Providence was in it, pointing 
to the fulfilment of the extatic promises of the Old Testament, 
and of the good tidings which shall be to all people, so solemnly 
promised in the New. 

With the renewed expression of my warmest thanks to you, 
to all the members of the Committee of Arrangements, and to all 
the inhabitants of the town, I remain, dear Sir, your friend and 
servant, JOHN QLTINCY ADAMS. 



I 



